12 Down Under
by Rose Pattinson-Cullen
Summary: When exotic, mysterious Edward comes down from his Beverly Hills life to stay with commitment-phobic Bella and her dysfunctional family for an entire year on exchange, who knows what will unfold? Relationships will blossom, boom and break. First FanFic.
1. Angels & Demons

**1: Angels & Demons**

I looked up at my mother, wanting reassurance. She glanced down at me, and gave me a positive smile, but I could feel the nerves radiating off her.

'His flight should have landed five minutes ago,' she said, after glimpsing at her watch. I rolled my eyes – my mother was outrageously excited about _him. _

Personally, though, I didn't see what the big fuss was. _So_, he was from America. _So_, he lived in Beverly Hills. What did that matter here in Australia? What would it matter at the country high school he would be attending with me?

It wouldn't. I'd seen enough movies, and enough episodes of Gossip Girl to know that he would be no Romeo. He would be a geek, social outcast, computer nerd, a hermit; I don't know why my mother was letting him intrude in our lives for an entire year.

He was just another guy in the international exchange program, and horribly enough, my own mother had made sure that we were just another family in the program.

My mum, Esme, is ridiculously maternal, so, of course, she jumped at the opportunity to have an international exchange student in our home.

I remember when my eldest brother, Emmett, had left home to go to Uni in Melbourne last year: she had cried for hours, and that was just before he left. She was sad for ages, and Emmett had to call three times a day at first for her to calm down and get back to her usual, pro-active self. Not even the fact that he would only be an hour and a half long drive away could console her. She was at all costs trying to avoid any thoughts about Jasper, my other brother, joining Emmett next year.

'Hold up the sign, Bella,' she said, dragging me out of my thoughts. I groaned.

'Mum, I'm not holding up this sign. I'm going to look like an idiot. Anyway, don't they only do this in movies? He'll know who we are. He's probably Googled us all a hundred times. Can't _you_ at least hold it?' I said, so tired of this guy already.

She sighed, but otherwise ignored me, trying to see above the hundreds of other heads swarming around Tullamarine airport. I dramatically shifted my weight to my other leg with a big huff, and reluctantly held up the oversized cardboard sign, reading, "EDWARD MASEN"

I was so embarrassed. I couldn't see any other signs like ours. Two minutes later, it was announced over the inter-com-thing that his flight was just de-boarding. I thought back to last night, my concentration slipping from the present…

"_Bella, hon, don't do this babe,' Mike had said drunkenly. Someone had obviously spiked the punch._

"_No, Mike," I'd told him. "It's over." I was, at this point, one of the few sober people here at Rosie's party._

"_Bells, babe…" he whined, trying in vain to get me to stop, even though we both knew it had been coming for weeks. He staggered over to me, his intoxicated state making him stumble and trip onto me. _

_I'd pushed him off, and said, "Mike, you idiot. You're blind drunk. And I can't go on with this. It's over. We're over." And turned away. _

All my relationships with guys turned out like that. We'd be inseparable in the first few weeks, but then, as time went on, we'd grow apart, and sometimes almost get sick of each other. It went on like that for a few weeks, until one of us was actually bothered to end it. So, after the whole Mike thing, I was sick and tired of it, and knew I wouldn't let myself go through that kind of crap again.

_Later, after the party, the five of us, Rosalie, Alice, Angela, Jess and I, held one of our not-so-annual, cheesy meetings. We tell everything to each other at the gatherings. Loves, lies, truths, families, everything. So, I talked about the boyfriend thing. At the end, when we all made a promise we had to keep until the next meeting, I'd said, 'I promise I will not get involved in anyone for the thrill, or for the kicks, and I will, of course, seek permission from my fellow 'sisters' if am to date any boy, and will not take it too far without discussing it with them first. Happy?' _It had been just about the most formal thing I'd ever said in one of the meetings (I don't take them very seriously), so every one, after a moment of quiet, we all burst out in hysteric fits of giggles. After that, I continued to talk about this Edward guy, and the creep he was certain to be. Soon enough, sleep had swallowed us all up…

"Oh!" my mother squeaked, piercing through my train of thought, after I'd unconsciously dropped the heavy cardboard sign on her high-heeled toes. _You always need to make a good first impression, Bella, and I don't want mine to be dwarfish,_ my mother had told me, after I'd questioned the lengthy shoe. This was ridiculous, because my mother was abnormally tall for someone in her family. It was a trait that seemed to have skipped my mother and get passed straight down to me: I was a mere 163 cms tall.

I bent to pick up the sign, and, just as I did, I heard a heavily-accented voice, just above my head, talking to my mother.

'I'm sorry, Miss, but was that sign you were holding up for Edward Masen?'

I was still crouching, so I slowly stood up, and, for the first ever time, saw the face of our gorgeous exchange student. I didn't trust myself to speak, so, while still ogling at his shockingly exquisite features, I mumbled a weak, 'Mm-hm,' in confirmation, slightly raising the sign, trying to draw his attention to it, as to prove to him he was coming home with us.

He smiled at me, not showing any teeth, seemed to take _me_ in. I wondered what he was thinking. Probably something along the lines of, _I hope they're meant to have a different Edward Masen, _or,_ I hope my name isn't actually Edward Masen – would it be rude to check my ID to make sure? _

'Are you Edward, dear?' my mother asked, making us both look up at her.

'Yes, ma'am, I am.' My mother flushed slightly at the formal language he used to address her, and looked him up and down, before clearing her throat.

'Well, Bella, I think we have the right one. Edward, darling, my name is Esme, and this is Isabella. We l-'

'Just, Bella,' I told him, interrupting my mother's spiel.

'Yes, Bella, as a nickname, she prefers. Anyway, we live in Bendigo, around an hour and a half from here, so we'll be home in no-time.'

We reached the veranda at Tulla, and I remembered just where my mother had parked her metallic-gray Peugeot. 'Mum, you parked the car in Avalon.' She looked at me for a second, fluttering her eyes in two blinks, then took at long glance at Edward's extensive luggage.

'Oh, hm, okay. Edward, I'm going to go and get the car. It's a long way away – you know how parking is during the holidays. So, if it's okay with you, you and Bella will stay here, and I'll collect you very soon.'

Edward nodded in consent, and Mum motioned for me to join her, a couple of metres away, where a hushed conversation would be concealed from Edward's perfectly shaped ears.

Pausing every few seconds to make sure Edward hadn't been swallowed up by the busy world of impatient commuters at Tullamarine, she told me, 'Be nice to him…Bells. Imagine how he's …feeling right now. The last thing he needs…is to feel unwelcome. Talk about school, or…something. Offer to take a bag. Okay?'

'Sure Mum. But if I found out he's been Googling us, we're putting him on the next plane back.'

She rolled her eyes, tired of this worn-out instruction, then went back to Edward, with me trailing her.

'I'll be back soon. Don't move.' She left us, expertly weaving her way through the crowds.

I stood next to Edward, in silence, not making much effort in thinking of a conversation starter, but also not oblivious of his close presence. _You __**will**__ hold you your ground. You will __**not**__ like him. _Although, I couldn't ignore the fact that my eyes were continuously wandering to his face, seemingly without any conscious instruction from me, at regular intervals of less than twenty seconds. _Ugh, come on! You're hopeless at this. HOLD YOUR GROUND!!! He's just going to be an asshole anyway! As if he'll have time for a little brunette Aussie kid. _And yet, I found myself trying to ignore the fact that these thoughts seemed force, unnatural, as much as I tried to ignore their cause.

It was Edward that broke the silence. 'I'm sorry, but I didn't seem to properly introduce myself before. I'm Edward Cullen, I'm sixteen. Just.' He flashed a smile that was more gorgeous than any other, but not because of his blindingly perfect teeth, nor the fullness of his lips. He had normal teeth, and slim lips, and his front left tooth was slightly crooked and minutely chipped. And that combination, plus the fact his grin was lopsided, endearingly so, made my pulse speed and my heart flutter.

_Ridiculous. You're pathetic. There's this thing, restraint. It could come in handy for you. STOP wondering if it would be okay to try to batter your eyelashes. It's not going to happen – not in a million years. Yeah, gentlemanly enough on the surface, but, Beverly Hills, Bells. He'll have broken your heart in a week, and then what? Avoid him for the rest of the year? Not likely… _

I shoved aside my nagging inner voice, wondering where the 'reassuring, good-willed angel' was – it seemed like the only invisible creature perched on my shoulder was a nagging demon. But, I took its advice, and forcefully removed all questionable thoughts of Edward and me from my mind, and felt a strange twinge of approval.

I then realized Edward was waiting for an answer. 'Bella,' I said, flushing. 'I'm fifteen – sixteen in October, so still a while.' He smiled again. I refused to let myself notice any new, engaging quirks to it. I was not allowed to be too observant, or it would eventually reach the worst.

'Um, what's Avalon?' he asked me, his brows creased. My head gave me a small but stern warning. _Don't even look at his eyebrows; you'll probably faint. _

I also realized that he would, of course, have absolutely no idea what I was referring to when I said Avalon. 'Oh, it's the other, tiny, airport here in Melbourne. It mostly just does domestic flights, but it's on the other side of the city, probably closer to Geelong than here, so…' I trailed, acknowledging that he would have no idea what Geelong was, let alone where it was comparatively to here, if one was trying to get to Avalon. 'Anyway, the car's that far away, I thought, well, not literally, but…' I shrugged, thankful it was a gesture that wouldn't let me ramble on.

'Yeah, no, I get it. It's good.' _Nice, Bells. At least you don't have to worry about him liking you now. _The angel seemed to have returned, but, during its absence, was converted into a devil. One of my shoulders suddenly felt a lot heavier than the other, as if it was carrying the others' load.

Another smile. This was going to be hard work. We stood in silence, until my mother returned, chattily, ten minutes later. She loaded Edward's gear into the boot, then, as I was getting into the passenger seat, dumped her heavy, large bag there, along with some shopping she'd removed from the boot to make room for the bags. She gave me a meaningful look, a _you sit in the back with our guest, because it's polite, and because I said so _look. I groaned under my breath, and hauled myself into the back seat, next to our devastatingly beautiful company. I sighed. _An entire year._


	2. Happy Meals & Welcoming

**2: Happy Meals & Veggie Patties**

**A/N: I hope you guys liked the first chapter! Just to let any skeptics know, I'm pretty sure Macca's doesn't have veggie burgers, at least not over here. **

**Also, I don't want to offend anyone with the argument they have. I'm on Edward's side, BTW. Enjoy! Please Review for a special summary of the next chapter!!!**

My mother continued to make small talk with Edward for seemingly hours, but every time I glanced at the clock on the dashboard, only a few minutes had past.

Around an hour into the drive, my mother pulled up in the city half an hour from our town, just in front of a Macca's.

'Who's hungry?' A smile lit up Edwards face. _Way to get to him, Mum._

The saying, 'the best way to get to a man's heart is through his stomach,' immediately popped into mind.

'Wow. You have Mickey Dee's here?' Edward inquired. I rolled my eyes.

'Duh. Why wouldn't we?' I left him and my mother in the car, walking up to the entrance then pausing. 'Coming?' I called back to them. I saw my mother gather up her bag and purse, as Edward jumped from the car.

Ten minutes later, we all sat in silence, munching away on our chips. As we finished those, we each moved on to the main, or the McDonalds equivalent there of.

I unwrapped my Happy Meal – a sentimental idea I valued more than the actual food – and saw that our guest had opted for a veggie burger.

He must have seen me questioningly eyeing it, as he said, 'I've always preferred these. I can't bear the thought of how they kill those cows and what parts they put in the burgers.' My heart softened a little, but I remained strong.

'But isn't it just the same anywhere?' I countered. 'Are you a vegetarian, or do you just not eat chain meat? Or just not Macca's?

'I eat meat, sure,' he said slowly. 'Just not…yeah, 'chain meat'.

'Does that mean you don't eat mince, then? Steak? Chops?'

He laughed. 'I'll eat something if I know where it's been. Like, yeah, I would eat homemade mince burgers. Because, mostly, I know what body part they are. I'm not fond of eating cows' hearts.'

'I see your point, but how is that so different from a steak? The cow's going to end up dead anyway. May as well use as much of it as you can'

'And I see your point, but for me, morally, it is different.'

My mother must have sensed one of my serious arguments coming up, as she said, 'Well, next time, why don't we all just have a salad?'

Edward smiled, and bit into his _veggie _burger, while I pouted, frustrated, at the patty in my miniature bun. I sighed heavily, fished it out, and popped it onto the tray.

'I guess you're right. It is… quite disgusting.'

'Oh,' he said, embarrassed. 'I didn't mean to pose my views on you. Really.' Damn, he wasn't even looking uncomfortable.

I smiled. 'It's fine, really. I was just testing you.'

'Sure, sure. Here.' He cut half of his veggie patty in half, using a small plastic knife, and in a very ceremonial gesture, handed me half of it. We both cracked up laughing. I nodded my head from side to side, acceptingly.

'Thanks,' I said, holding up the now over-filled, miniature bun in another gesture.

'Anytime,' he said, and I think, just maybe, he really meant it.

'So, Edward, this is it.' My mother pulled up our the front of our large, two story

house. Blindingly white weatherboard stood out against my mother's well tended garden – surely, only she could keep these plants from dying in such outrageous, sweltering weather. It was extremely lush compared to the other gardens in town. My mother had won the gardening competition almost every year since we'd moved here.

Edward seemed to take in the imposing structure and its surroundings, and I wondered what he was thinking. Surely, it couldn't be astonishment – he lived in the_ Hills_, after all. Our house must be a crap-shack compared to the mansions he'd be used to. Ugh. I hated the fact that he could look down on us.

'Wow. It's so lovely. Where I come from, all the houses are five stories high, and made of polished granite. It's just so…homey.'

'Aw, thank you, dear. Such a gentleman,' my mother said, relishing the complement. 'Well, I'm sure you're absolutely exhausted, Edward. Bella, could you go fetch some bags while I show Edward up to his room? Good,' she added, not giving me a chance to answer her rhetorical question.

She and Edward left the car, and Mum showed him up to the guest room. I went round to the drivers' side to open the boot, and grabbed two light duffel bags and a laptop case.

Then, I went into Jasper's room, where my brother had some Dizzee song on. 'He's here. Mum said you had to get his stuff.' When he didn't respond, 'Now!' I opened his door then slammed it. 'Jasper!'

'Yep. Whatever. Go away,' was his ingenious retort. So, before leaving, I grabbed a dirty pair of skins off the floor and flung them at him, making a mental note to wash my hands as soon as I could.

'Now!'

I started the climb upstairs, enjoying the frustrated 'Argh' I received as he went to go get the luggage.

I found Mum and Edward in the guest room, where my mother was showing him all the features of the room. '…And you can put all of your clothes in here, hang up the ones you don't want creases in the wardrobe over there…Feel welcome to-'

'Jaspers' getting the other ones.'

'Thanks.' He smiled at me, yet again, and I felt utterly hopeless. I handed him the three bags I had strapped around me.

'No problems.'

He kept looking at me, and, embarrassed at the attention, I looked to the ground, then out the window to his left.

We were interrupted by my brother exaggeratingly grunting his way up the stairs to the second story.

'Jesus. What the hell did you pack in these? I'm Jasper.' He stuck his hand out to greet Edward with a grin, which our guest returned enthusiastically.

'Edward. Sorry. About the bags.'

'Nah, it's fine. Don't worry. You're here for a yeah. Imagine what Bells would have packed.' Jasper laughed at his own joke, and while I elbowed him in the ribs, Edward joined in.

My mother, watching the exchange, grinned, happy that her two boys were getting along easily. She'd been so worried that either Jasper or Emmett wouldn't like Edward, so she was ecstatic that half of that problem was out of the way. Now, only my eldest brother would have to get over the shock: although, he'd only be living with him for a few weeks, plus occasional weekends – mostly public holiday ones.

My mother then resumed showing Edward about the room, saying he could put all of his CDs and books over here, and his laptop could be kept safe in this draw, and everything else she deemed essential.

I made my way through the now shared bathroom, just before Esme took Edward in there, probably showing him which way to turn the taps. I felt the urge to turn around and tell her, _he'll figure it out!_, but resisted it, and continued through to my room.

I plopped onto the double bed, which for the first time in a decade was made, especially for the occasion, and smiled.

In evaluation, he was much more than I had expected. This, however, presented more work for me, which, admittingly, I was adverse to. The prospect of living with him for a full year was excruciatingly painful. To make things worse, there was only a single room between us. I sighed. _Only you, Bells, only you._

Over the next two days, Edward spent most of his time sleeping, recovering from his jetlag. I imagined he'd had some massive going away party the night before his departure, gotten blind drunk, and onto the plane with a hangover. Had his eyes been bloodshot when he first arrived?

Anyway, between the times he was unconscious, we would talk a bit. He'd twice come into my room at three o'clock in the afternoon and asked how early it was. I never minded, however, as usually, this would give us a chance to talk. We'd chat about school, mostly. He wanted to know how the system here worked, and how long each term was, and how often we had exams. I'd told him how it worked; and that it was nine or ten weeks, though the last one was shorter; and we had exams at the end of every semester.

I found myself noticing the smallest of things: like how he had one small, black hair just below his jaw, how he had a freckle that matched mine (making me ecstatic), that was just diagonally south-west from our noses, and that every time the conversation turned to him, he would reply with less than ten syllables, and then find a way to focus on me, or an aspect of my life again.

Being a person who can talk for ages over almost nothing, I savored the experience, pouring out everything I could tell him. This was sorted into two groups: The one that most things I didn't answer fit into was 'I don't know,' but the other category were things that were 'bound' by the group, although I answered aloud 'I don't know,' to those too.

I told him about my brothers: Emmett the oversized goof, and Jasper the slightly gothic blond. I told him my Dad was a doctor, and my mother was an architect, but mostly worked from home, designing. I told him all about my best friends: how Rose was a year above us, and going out with Em. How Jazz and Alice had been a thing since year seven but hadn't told anyone except me (really, it was the group, but I couldn't say that) until almost a year later. That Angela had always wanted to be a vet, but her mother wanted her in law, and how Jess wanted to be a hairdresser, and carry on the family business. I told him more than he must have wanted to know, really, but never once did he look bored, annoyed, or fed up.

However, when I insisted he tell me something about himself, he disclosed to me things more interesting than I could ever tell him about my ordinary life. I found out he had a younger sister who was at the American Academy of Dance, and that I'd love her, and she was morbidly annoying. I wasn't sure whether to take that as a complement or an insult. How I'd ever keep a grudge against Edward was beyond me, though.

Every night, he insisted on joining us for tea. The first night, as a welcoming sentiment, we held a barbeque out I the scorching, setting sun, which Edward enjoyed immensley, but looked as if he would fall asleep the entire time. We'd all laughed at this.

Anyway, now, after almost three days of sleeping, Edward was going to meet everyone. As in, everyone. Emmettt was coming down from Melbourne and bringing Rose. Jasper had invited over Alice. Both the girls' parents would be joining us, as they were close, close friends with my parents. I'd asked him if he was ready for such a thing, just as a joke, but he'd taken it seriously, and said, 'I think…?' which had made us all laugh, him included. All in all, we got on easily. Jasper often took Edward into the back yard, while he was awake, and attempted to teach him how to play Aussie Rules, to some extent. While they were doing this, my mum and I would watch from the kitchen, saying thnigs like, 'They're getting along well,' and, 'He's almost got the hang of it now.'

Most of though, I loved the times when we bumped into each other in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. Usually, he was topless, making my blush, without fail.

My always talked, and he had a habit of letting the smallest amounts of foamy toothpaste out of his mouth when he talked while brushing. When he realized this and wiped his face were the only times I ever saw him blush in those first few days.

Now, waiting for use of the bathroom, jus about the only annoying thing about Edward's stay, I thought about what had unfolded in the last few days. I wondered how Edward would react when he met everyone in just a short hour's time. Also, I wondered when I'd admit to myself I really liked him, and, if I did, when I'd let him know.


	3. Classics & Pasts

**Classics & Pasts**

**Already on Ch. 3!!!! Reviews are slightly disappointing, though! I know there are more than two of you out there reading!! I don't mean to sound horrible and selfish, but, I'd love some more so so so much – the feedback stimulates my wanting to continue this project. How about 5 reviews for this chappy, then another update??? **

**Anyway, without further ado, we shall continue…**

**Disclaimer: I wish, so so much…*sigh***

**________________________________________________________________________**

With a quarter of an hour left until the dinner party, Edward and I sat on my bed, chatting. I'd just gotten out from the bathroom, to find Edward inspecting the make-up on my dresser. He was holding an eyelash curler quite close to his eyes, inspecting it.

'You look like you're contemplating something,' I said, jokingly, and he jumped.

'I was…just…ah. Um, I was…checking the joints. Don't want to gouge your eye out, right?' he said slowly, but gaining enthusiasm as he made up a story.

'Oh, yeah. Totally. Just…checking. Fair enough…' He almost blushed, and I got a feeling of satisfaction.

Now, we sat conversing, like we had multiple times over the last few days. We'd been talking about things like jobs, and studying, but then I'd gone and idiotically asked him about his parents.

'I don't…know them, anymore. I lost them. In a car accident.' He looked at the quilt covering my bed as he said this.

I gulped. _Shit. Way to go, Bells. _'I'm so, so sorry, Edward. I didn't…mean to upset or offend yo-'

'Hey, it's fine. Chill. All done and over now, anyway, right?' he asked me, rhetorically, and suddenly felt extremely guilty over the things I had told my brother in anticipation of Edward's arrival. 'Why can't he just freaking stay there with his own parents? In his fifteen story mansion, with his two Barbie sisters and his hundred inch plasma-LCD and MacBook stupid lime green Ferrari?'

I also immediately, wanted to know more: _Who did he live with? Did he keep in touch with his sister? Does he have any other family?_

__He must have seen the curiosity burning in my eyes, because he continued: 'I live with my Aunt and Step-Uncle. In a ridiculous four-story house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms and two malicious white poodles called Maggie and Sally. My Step-Uncle is an executive at the Beverly Hills baseball club, and he's the reason the house is so…imposing. But, despite his _wealth, _I'm really not that well off. He makes sure I don't use his money, and if I do, he thinks it right to punish me. Anyway, I guess it sounds like Harry Potter, huh? It doesn't really matter… It used to be better, though, when Elizabeth lived with me.'

'Huh,' I said quietly, taking it all in. Could I have been any more inconsiderate? I knew it wasn't my fault, but, still… I felt horrible.

As I was mulling over all of this mentally, Edward stood up and made his way over to the bookcase in the corner of my room, between the dresser and entrance to the bathroom.

He sat, cross-legged, and looked over all of the titles, occasionally running a finger down the spine. As I approached him, I heard him murmuring the names under his breath. He seemed to look at them with an air of worship, something I'd often seen my father do, and he'd told me the same.

'You like books, hey?'

'Yeah,' he replied. 'Almost as much as you, it seems. Great collection.'

'Thank-you. You're welcome to borrow them.'

A moments silence passed comfortably as he continued his examination of the titles, before he asked, 'How are these organized?' somewhat exasperatedly

I blushed – I'd hoped he wouldn't ask this, as the system was insane. 'Well,' I began, 'the top row are my favourites, and they're sorted from most satisfactory ending to least satisfactory ending, left to right. I couldn't really think of another way, because I like the entire stories equally. Um, then the second and third rows are other books I like but didn't quite get into the faves list. They're in alphabetical. The fourth, is series, like the HPs, Narnia from when I was eight and the John Marsden ones. They're ordered by date published. Then the bottom two are books that I either still need to read, were given my relatives that I really don't want to read, or I still need to give back to people I've borrowed from.'

He continued to look, then asked, 'How can Hamlet be one of your favourites? It's awful.'

I gasped. 'No, it's not! It's an excellent book. For your information, I was in it in the school production last year.'

'Who did you play?'

'Ophelia.' He raised an eyebrow, but, thankfully, said nothing.

'It's a classic. I love it.'

He chuckled at this, then resumed his musing over the titles. As he did, I sat down next to him, and watched him carefully. After a minute of him being completely oblivious to my staring, he turned, looking as if he was about to ask me something, but then stopped, realizing how close I was.

He smiled, and I did too, all the while looking at his too-tempting lips. Perfectly shaped, they were far too enticing to be legal, and as I ogled over them, I saw him lean in, close to me. I bought my gaze up to his piercing green eyes, and he did the same. We sat still, studying each other's eyes intently. I smelt him, his perfect, alluring scent of musk and fruit and ginger and skin, and leant in more, and he copied my movements, until we were just a couple of inches apart.

I realized my lips were slightly parted, but before I could do anything about it, he closed the gap between us, touching our lips for the briefest of seconds before a loud knock on the door made us jump apart in surprise.

'The Brandons are here, and Alice is downstairs with Jasper, Bella. Do you have Edward with you?'

I sighed, and replied, 'Yeah, Mum. I'll be down in two secs. I'm just finishing my mascara. Two seconds, yeah?'

'Fine, but hurry up, and you really don't need to wear make-up, espec-'

'Fine, Mum, I won't put on anymore. Goodbye!' I heard her retreating steps, then turned back to Edward, who was still staring at me. 'Sorry,' I whispered softly.

'It's fine,' he replied, just as quietly. I wondered whether we could finish the kiss, and I sat there for a couple of seconds, wondering whether I should make the first move.

Turns out, I didn't have to: Edward leant in again, and pressed his lips to mine. I let one of my hands rest in his soft, gorgeous hair, while the other supported me, on the carpet. His lips felt like honey and feathers, moving ever so softly against mine.

I broke away for air, and wondered whether my eyes looked just as wild as his. Then I looked at his mouth, again, and I couldn't help the bark of a laugh that spat its way out of my throat – I'd completely forgotten I was wearing cherry gloss, or_ had_ been, at least. Edward had tell-tale pink smudges all around his mouth, just slightly outside the contour lines of his lips. I moved the hand that was clenched full of his bronze locks down to his mouth, and wiped the perimeter, then licking my fingers clean of the sweet tasting gloss.

He reached up a hand to double check my cleaning skills, stood up, and after a satisfactory nod, outstretched a hand for me. On our way out, he swiped a quick glance in the mirror, triple checking, and then I did too, just to make sure I was free of smudginess, before Edward yanked my hand that was still clasped in his.

We went out into the hallway, and for the second time in five minutes, jumped apart. Alice was standing at the top of the stairs, looking at us, smiling knowingly.

'Al! Didn't know you were upstairs! What are you…' I said breathlessly.

'Hey, Bella. I haven't seen you in almost a week. Hi. And this…must be Edward. Hi, I'm Alice Brandon,' she spoke to him, now extending a hand for him to shake.

'Edward Masen. Pleasure to meet you. I've heard so much about you.'

'I could say the same about you,' Alice said, her voice dripping with a second meaning, and turning to me. She gave me a meaningful look, and I imagined how bad this must look: I've spent weeks whining about what a disgusting, horrible person he's going to be, and not even a week after I meet him, she finds us holding hands, after coming out of _ my bedroom, _looking frantic, wild, and ecstatic. _Fuuuuuuuuck. _

The entire time I contemplated this, Alice stood there politely, smiling, as did Edward. The three of us were interrupted as Esme shouted up to us from the foot of the stairs, 'Kids, come on! Em's here with the Hales.'

Alice nodded slightly at Edward and me, still standing very close to each other, and retreated down the stairs. I glanced apologetically at Edward, then shot down after her.

'Alice, wait!' I whispered loudly. She stopped on the landing and turned to face me, her arms crossed.

'What was that, Bella?'

'You don't understand. He's not at _all _what I thought he would be. He's funny, and caring, and-'

'And so were Mike, and Tyler, and James and Eric. For a month. He's not here for _just a month, _Bells. What are you trying to do to yourself?'

I sighed. 'Don't you think I haven't thought about that one hundred times since he got into our car? I know, trust me. I _am_ being careful, but, I don't know. You know how you always try to explain how you feel around Jasper to me, but I get all weirded out and squeal coz he's my brother? Well, that's it. I feel giddy, and light-headed, and I have butterflies, and time stands still. It's only him. Mike gave me a coldsore-' she smiled at this '-not fuzzy feelings. Trust me, _please_, Al?'

It was her turn to sigh, and then she giggled, and looked up at him, still at the top of the staircase, watching us, but unable to hear our whispered conversation. 'Well, I guess he_ is _quite pretty. Have you kissed him?' she gushed, and if the gossip was vital to her survival.

I blushed, and she knew to take this as confirmation. 'You have! Not even a week, and you've already tied him down and pashed him!'

'Just once.'

'What was it like?' she asked with a new enthusiasm.

'Alice! You have a boyfriend! He's my brother! I'll tell you later. You staying tonight?'

'Yeah, but I think your mum wants us to all sleep downstairs, in the lounge. So is Rosie and Em. We'd better hurry, though,' she said, studying her nails. With that, she turned away, jumping the last few stairs, and making her way into the dining room.

I turned back to Edward, and quickly motioned for him to come down, which he did, running down the flight of steps amazingly quickly. 'You're fast,' I told him, as we, side by side, made our way down the lat ten steps and across the hall, into the dining room.

We were greeted by David and Louisa Brandon, Alice's parents, and Rose's mum Carol. They all shook Edward's hand, and introduced themselves, as did Rose and Emmett, who hadn't been acquainted with him yet.

My eldest brother took an instant liking to Edward, shaking his hand with great gusto, and giving him a firm pat on the back.

I gave Emmett a hug, and a 'I haven't seen you in ages. How are you doing?' but that was pretty much it as far as it goes with Emmett and warm greetings

We all sat down, Edward in between Esme and Carlisle, while I sat next to Al and Rose, who each had one of my brothers on their other side. The other three parents filled up the gaps: two between Esme and Em, and another among Dad and Jazz. To his great discomfort, Edward ended up at the head of the table.

For tea, we had Mum's lasagne: one meat, and one veggie, as Alice and Carol are vegetarians, and I suspected that Edward would opt for that choice, too.

Because Edward and I were virtually at opposite ends of the table, we didn't speak during tea, but I looked up twice to find him staring at me curiously, as did I, a few times. I noticed that Edward was generally passed around the adults, as far as conversation went. They were all very interested about his life, and America.

I flinched each time someone asked him about who he lived with, or his family, but he would always answer that his sister was at a prestigious dance academy, and he was very proud of her. Once, after he had said this, Carol, who he was talking to, had said, 'Surely your parents must be, too?' and he'd answered 'They must be. How couldn't they?' Carol had then gushed about how modest he was, but apart from that, no one tried to get more information from him on that subject.

After tea, our parents talked for two hours, while we - Emmett, Rose, Alice, Jasper, Edward and I - moved into the lounge, and turned on the TV to see if there were any good movies on. We settled on Channel 10, and as the opening credits flashed by, I saw a familiar name.

I recognised the movie in an instant: It was _Midnight_, the first in the _Midnight Series_ that Al, Rose and I were obsessed with, not to mention millions worldwide. **(A/N: If you haven't guessed, **_**Midnight**_** is code for **_**Twilight**_**) **The three of us squealed simultaneously, as the three guys groaned.

'You're serious?' Edward asked, a tone of disgust colouring his voice.

'SHHHHH!' Alice shhhed, 'It's just started!'

'Emmett! Go get the sleeping bags!' rose ordered.

'And the popcorn and pillows and chocolate!' I added.

'You too Jasper!' Alice said, and 'SSSHHHHHHHH!!!!'ed again when my brothers started to complain.

'Come on Edward, mate. They're dangerous when this is on. We'd better do what they say,' Emmett told him, standing up. I turned around to briefly glare at him before flipping back to the screen.

They filed out of the room, and as soon as it was clear, the three of us jumped onto a couch each. Alice, as usual, was stuck on the loveseat, but it fit her petite frame nicely, as long as she had a pillow she could rest her head on.

As the ad break came on and I muted the television, I heard the popcorn machine whizzing in the kitchen, and Emmett grunting upstairs at the linen cupboard, making me giggle. The other girls did too, but then Alice stopped suddenly.

'OhmigawdRoseguesswhat?' Alice began, talking in a blur, jumbling her words together into almost incomprehensible mush.

'What?' Rose asked, falling for Alice's gossip bait.

'Bella kissed Edward!' Alice started giggling madly again, while I stopped.

'Al!'

'What? We tell everything, right?' Alice said, her high pitched voice menacing.

'You could've let me!'

'Oh, Bells, don't get mad. She only wanted to let me know that,' Rose said in a soft tone, 'You kissed Edward! You kissed Edward!'

'Bella kissed Edward?' _Oh, fuck. _

'Yep!' Alice replied to her boyfriend, as he walked in with two hot bowls of buttery, salty, delicious popcorn.

'Shit! Way to go, 'lil sis, you minx!' Jasper almost shouted.

I threw a cushion at him, and he caught it with a soccer goalie's precision, when we heard Edward and Emmett making their way through the hall, heading for the lounge.

Jasper's smile widened as I glared at him meaningfully, and stuck a 'Shh' finger in front of my mouth.

I was about to mouth a threat to him, when he said, 'Fine, fine…' and sat down an Alice's stomach.

'Shit, Jazz! Get off! You're too heavy!' Alice exclaimed. Emmett laughed as he and Edward walked in. Jasper jumped up, and Alice sat up so Jasper could sit down. When he did, she simply grabbed a pillow from Emmett, put it on Jasper's lap, and lay straight down again. Jasper rolled his eyes, and Alice smiled lovingly at him, playfully patting his head.

Emmett dumped the bedding on the floor and sat at Rose's feet. She put her feet in his lap, and he played with them, one by one, and Rose would occasionally kick him if he tried to tickle her.

This left Edward standing, clutching a pillow. I sat up into a vertical position, and nodded for him to join me. On his way, he grabbed another pillow, a doona and one of Jasper's bowls of popcorn, just as the movie resumed. I fished out the remote from the crack in between the side of the couch and the cushion, and unmated it.

Edward handed me a pillow – my favourite one, with Snoopy on it – and then put the doona over us, and the popcorn in the middle. I smiled in thanks at him, and grabbed a handful with my hand that wasn't under the covers.

About halfway into the movie, I started feeling sleepy, but was determined not to let myself fall asleep. Instead, I slumped, and stared at the screen with heavy eyes.

Alice must have been feeling the same way, because she said, 'Jasper, do you mind getting the Diet coke I bought with me? It's in your…'- she stopped to yawn -'…room, I think. Thank you.'

This woke me up a little, and I took another few pieces of popcorn, then realized I'd taken the last bits. I picked it up, and put it on the carpet floor, and wiped my greasy hand on the doona cover.

Edward smiled at me, and, under the cover of the doona, he caught my hand in his. His hand was warm and soft, and was the perfect shape for mine. I couldn't help it, and so, with all four of the others watching us intently, I leant into his side, molding into him. Too soon, before I knew what was happening, let alone could control it, I fell asleep, with Edward's hand around mine, the other around my waist. I fell into a comfortable slumber, smiling.


	4. Tunes & Risky Business

**Sooooo... Sorry about the long wait, everyone! Hoped you all liked the last chapter – I know it was all very sudden, with the kissing, but that's what I wanted - they're both very overwhelmed by each other, and think that they're experts at the whole love thing, so they're going into everything head first, not looking back. **_**This **_**will come back and bite them – especially Bella - so to speak. And with Emmett on the loose, I thought it might be appropriate to drop a language warning on this chapter…**

**Thank you immensely to all the wonderful, fabulous reviewers, who make my day by taking time to tell me what they think, esp **_**becksishere**_**, who is always there for me, supporting with brilliant feedback (check out her awesome story, y'all). I love replying to them, so please drop one. **

**Also: If anyone has any ideas they'd like me to consider including, I'd love to hear them, and would strive to put them in. I know how it is when you think of something that would fit in with a FanFic awesomely. I'd also like to know if there are any similar stories to this one, just so I can see what they've done with the whole 'exchange' thing, et cetera. The story's creation playlist is on my profile, so check it out!!!**

**I'm also looking for a beta, especially one who would be up to writing kissing descriptions, because that's not my strongest point. Send me a message if you're interested.**

**Wow, so this is waaaaay too long, so with that, we continue… Cheers!**

I woke up to sunny, hot, humid morning on the sweaty leather couch, still wearing my clothes from the dinner party, and a light, patterned blanket draped over me softly. I sat up quickly, remembering last night's events, then saw the five of my friends, each unconscious in some position in the room.

Al and Rose were still on the couches, Rose snuggled tight into the back of the sofa, while Alice looked like she was about to tumble off, her arms flung over the edge of the couch carelessly. One of her knees was far over the side, which was unbalancing her thoroughly. Emmett snored heavily, the sound rippling the air in the room, while Jasper was a soft imitation. I smiled at them all, and while I sank back into my lying position, I realized there was a pair of curious green eyes on me.

I jutted back up, so I could see him. 'Hi,' I croaked sleepily.

'Morning,' he replied, his voice as perfect as usual. I smiled at him, before crinkling my eyes at the bright light in the room. I decided to jump up and pull the heavy, red curtains across the floor-to-ceiling windows. I sighed heavily in relief when a warm, dark red glow cast itself across the polished floor. I turned around, and I saw Edward was now sitting on the couch I'd been on, looking at the CD rack next to it.

'Very…eclectic collection,' he told me.

'Yeah, the five of us all have _very _different taste in music.' Just like with the books in my room, he trailed his fingers over the spine of each CD case, ponderingly. I sat down next to him, grabbed the pillow I'd been using last night, and put it on his lap, then lay down, my head on top of the fluffy cushioning. He didn't seem fazed at all by my forwardness – he continued to look at the CDs, occasionally pulling one out to look at the list of songs.

'So, what does everyone like?' he asked.

'Well… I have a completely insane hopeless taste in music. I like so many different genres. I'll show you my iTunes library sometime – you'll understand then. Jazz is into a lot of alternative, indie pop-rock kinda stuff, not _extremely_ mainstream, I guess, like Radiohead and Kaiser Chiefs. And Em's opposite – he likes Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris and in Year 6 he performed some rap song at school assembly, and…failed miserably.

'Dad likes…I don't know, kind of, Paul Kelly and Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley type stuff. Mum's a Nick Cave fanatic, which explains the multiple albums, and apart from that she listens to a lot of classical and plays piano herself. I don't know; we all listen to each other's stuff, and I like quite a bit of it. Except Emmett's. So that's why _my_ taste is so jumbled up and hectic – I have so much influence from other people, including Al and Rose and Jess and Ange… Yeah. Oh, and Jasper has a massive crush on the chick from Blondie, though he'll never admit it.'

'Ah,' Edward replied, after a flash of complete silence, taking in my large spiel, and looking amused. I resisted the urge to make a smart comment, and instead wondered how late we were up last night. It couldn't have been _that _late, but the long advertisement breaks between segments of the movie were always very time-consuming. I hadn't realized my eyes had fully drooped shut until I felt my hair moving.

Edward's fingers raked through the tresses, occasionally - and embarrassingly - getting stuck in a knot of hair. He gently pulled each small strand of hair, releasing it from its peers. I didn't sigh, thankfully, but a lazy, appreciative smile spread across my face. I have no idea how long we stayed like that, but eventually Edward decided to make some conversation.

'So, um, Bella?'

'Yep?'

'You know, um, yesterday…when we…'

'Yeah…?'

'When we…kissed…um, well, I was just wondering…'

'Mm?' I wondered if this was the first ever time Edward was lost for words.

'Well, I, um, I-'

'Wakey, wakey, everyone! Time to rise and shine!' Emmett. Of course. 'Rosie! Get up!' he said in a sing-song voice, his voice going several octaves too high as he jumped out from his sleeping bag and started gently kicking his three sleeping friends. Edward and I jumped apart, flinging ourselves to opposite ends of the couch.

_Oh shit. He totally heard._

'Come on Jasper! Alice! I'm going to make my famously-delightful-extremely-special-pancakes!' Emmett called, making it sound like one big word. Several groans filled the room as its' sleepy inhabitants awoke.

'Em, dude, it's like, nine. You're insane.' Emmett didn't seem at all altered by Jazz's comment, and he bent down to where Alice had her eyes clamped shut, and screamed in her ear, jokingly, 'Up!'

'Ah!' was Al's response as she fell heavily from the couch, followed by an, 'Oww! That hurt, you bitch.'

'Sorry. I suppose that for someone as small as you, it's a long way from the couch to the floor.' Emmett received a glare from Alice, and returned her with a corny, shit-eating grin. 'You know you love me.'

'X-O, X-O, Gossip Girl,' Rose added with a smile as she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

'Ugh,' replied Emmett, showing his disgust for the TV series he'd been forced to watch with his girlfriend on countless occasions.

** '**Elizabeth loves that show. She's mad for Dan,' Edward contributed.

'Dude, you know his name? That's sad,' Jasper told him.

'Oh!' Alice scoffed. 'As if you don't!'

'_I _only know Chuck who _talks like this_,' Jasper countered, dragging out the last few words in a slurred, deep imitation of Chuck Bass. I rolled my eyes at him. _Hopeless case_, I repeated mentally to myself several times.

We fell silent for a second, before cracking up. After a while, Emmett told us, 'I'm going to start on the pancakes,' and headed out of the room.

'I'm…going to help?' I said unsurely, before following after him, receiving a couple of weird looks.

Alice, however, figured out it was important, and distracted the others with a 'So, Edward, did you sleep?'

When I reached the kitchen, Emmett turned around, spatula in hand, grinning like a douche. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down at me and nudged my side as I busied myself with getting a glass of water.

'Well, _some_one's on the ball! Ready to get this steam-train rolling, huh?'

'Shuddup,' I muttered in response, half-way through a glass sip of water.

'You kissed _already_?!?'

'Mph,' I confirmed, somewhat dismissively, with a mouthful of water.

'You saucy bitch,' he told me, and received a harsh smack on the head with the frying pan I was getting from the cupboard. 'Ouch. Jesus, calm down. Jeez.'

We worked in silence for a while, getting out the self-raising flour, eggs, milk, sugar and orange juice that Emmett used as his, "No, I really _can't_ tell! It's my _secret ingredient!_" And, it had remained that way for quite some time, until Jasper and I walked in on him making them on mother's day once, being greeted with an, 'Aw, fuck you guys! I'm trying to do this. Now piss off!'

When I finished the squeezing of the juice, I asked him, 'How long were you awake for?'

'You mean you didn't notice when I stopped snoring?'

'No.'

'Well, I guess you were a little pre-occupied…' he said with a grin.

'Bastard.'

'And I love you too, little sister.'

'No, seriously. When?'

'I don't know. You were like, telling him about Blondie or something.'

'So you heard all of the…um…'

'Yep!' he replied cheerfully.

'What about Blondie?' Another voice entered the conversation when Jasper walked in. Emmett and I smiled, knowingly. Jasper blushed, knowingly.

'So, did you hear about Bella and my mate Eddy?' Jasper asked Em, trying to change the subject. Successfully, too, I might add.

'Yeah! And what, like a week after she broke up with Mikey the Man? She's getting around!'

'You guys need help,' I muttered to them. I grabbed the two spoons we'd been using to stir the mixture, and making like I was heading to the sink with one in each hand, dipped them into the bowl of batter, and flung the contents of one at each of my brothers.

Their shouts of 'Oh, fuck!' and 'Shit, you bitch!' were really all I'd wanted out of it, but I knew they wouldn't go down without a fight. So, fittingly, they each grabbed one side of me, lifted me up, took me outside and around the house to where the green bins were stored. Jazz opened the lid while Emmett struggled to keep me in his grasp, and they both lowered me into the reeking, half-full trash, laughing the entire time.

In between my squeals of disgust as different sloppy things squelched between my bare toes, I had to laugh too. We were so incredibly dysfunctional. So, once I was in the bin, crouching and coughing from the smell of the bin and the hilarity of it all, they shut the lid and put bricks and bricks and bricks on top of the lid. I heard the shouts of, 'See you tonight, Bells!' and the closing of the flywire on the doorframe, before I started punching my fists against the hot, luminescent plastic sides around me.

A few minutes later, I began the shouts of, 'Help! Get me out, you dicks!' and just as I was up to the 'dicks' part couple of times through, the lid was lifted above me, and I could finally breath, and I saw Edward's face grinning down at me.

'You called?'

'Yes. _Thank-you_,' I told him, and he extended a hand for me to grab.

He pulled me out of the bin, and helped me brush off all of the grime and scraps off food, loyally pretending he didn't notice the smell, his nose unintentionally, however slightly askew with disgust.

'Sorry I didn't come earlier,' he said. 'It took me ages to get where you were out of them.'

I laughed. 'Its fine,' I told him, and then nodded along with a 'thanks,' as he opened the door for me.

The first and foremost thing on my mind right now was getting the banana out from between my toes, and the most effective way to this, which was coincidentally second on the list, was have a shower. Then, almost as important, was shouting at Jasper and Emmett.

Edward and I walked upstairs, his excuse that he was going to get changed. As we reached the door to my room, he said, 'Look, about the conversation before… I just wanted to say that I'm…Not sorry, and I really like you, and it's okay if you want to be slow, so, yep. That's it.' And with that, he fled into his bedroom, leaving me speechless.

After I recovered – which took a good twenty or thirty seconds – I walked up to the door he had just disappeared through, and banged on it loudly. 'Hey!'

'What?' I heard as he opened the door powerfully and swiftly, however looked anxious.

'You can't just…disappear after you say something like that. You…have to…talk to me about it,' I finished with some difficulty.

'Well, then, what do you want to know?'

'It's not about what I want to know – it's about you wanting to know what I have to say about what you've said!' I retorted, frustrated, my voice getting louder with each syllable.

It took him a minute to calculate and figure out what I'd just said, before he answered, 'Jesus, Bella! What do you want me to say?'

'I want you to care about me caring about you! You can't just care about me and not let me, too.'

After momentary silence, he grinned, to my dissatisfaction, then started chuckling. 'You do realize what you just said?'

And after a second of my being stony-faced, I smiled to, realizing what I had said was, in fact, utter dribble, no matter how much sense it had made to me.

'I'm going to shower,' I told him, before leaving him alone, a smile playing on my lips.

'Fuck me, it's hot!' Emmett exclaimed as the six of us lounged in the dining room, clad in skimpy, summer clothing.

'Emmett! Language!' My mother called from the kitchen.

'Sorry, Ma!' he replied, then said, softer, said, 'Flip-fudge-flock me, it's hot!' We all laughed with out much enthusiasm, then realized even that was too hot, and stopped.

'Well, I'm bored. I'm going to the pool,' I told them all, standing up and stretching.

'I'm in,' Rose said.

'Yep, me too. We can wear our new bikinis, Bells,' Alice confirmed.

'You went bikini shopping without me?' Rose demanded.

'You've already got three for the summer,' Al replied coolly.

'Yeah, I'll go,' Jasper told me, cutting in before Rosalie could shoot something back at Alice. 'Come on Al. I'll get ready, then we can drive past your place so you can dump your bag and grab your swimmers and stuff.'

'Sounds like a plan,' Al told him, and they left for Jasper's room.

'You wanna do the same, Rosie?' Em asked his girlfriend.

'Yep. We'll meet you at the pool in twenty, thirty minutes, say, Bells?'

'Cool. Tell Jazz too.' They left, holding hands, with a murmured agreement.

I turned to Edward, who had been silent for a while. 'You want to come? You're welcome to stay here and just chill, or something,' I told him.

'No, I'll come,' he replied. 'It seems like all I've seen of this country is the airport, a Macca's and your house. I'll go grab my swimmers.' He stood up.

'Okay. Me too. You can put, like, your towel, sunnies and sunscreen or whatever in my bag. There's room.'

'Thanks,' he told me, before leaving.

I almost ran up the stairs and to my room, not able to hold back the excitement for flaunting my brand new, gorgeous swimmers in front of Edward.

What was happening to me? I never really cared about what guys thought of me before. Perhaps that was why all of my relationships were duds. I sighed. _Shut up and get over it, Bells,_ my sub-conscious told me. It didn't seem to be helping much.

After I changed into the bikini and matching boardies, pulled on a black Emily Strange T-shirt, put my hair up into a high pony tail, shoved my towel, sunnies, oil-free moisturizing sunscreen and wallet into my checked Country Road tote, I messaged Ange and Jess, to tell them we were going to the pool. I then went down stairs, hunted out Mum's purse, and shoved a couple of twenty dollar notes into my wallet, before receiving two texts almost simultaneously.

My inbox read:

**2**/785: You have **2** unread messages

785 – Ange

_Hey. Hows the Edward guy? Havnt seen u in ages, so ill meet u there round 2. My lil bros wanna go a.w. ILY xx_

784 – Jessssssssie

_Hi. WTF? Wood it kill u 2 call? Anyz, im goin wit Mike. I fink he likes me! 3 __ c u ther latr. _

Trust Jess to pounce on him. _Oh well, you broke up with him,_ I reminded myself.

I jumped when Edward came up behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder, which he removed when I startled.

'Oh, hi, I'm sorry. I was just…texting.'

'It's fine. Didn't mean to surprise you or anything. Just that I'm ready, so… I'll leave whenever you're ready,' he said, and nodded

'Okay. Cool. I just realized we have no means of transport to the pool except bikes, which is _ so _not happening, so I'm gonna get Em to take us. I'll just be a minute,' I told him, as I got a couple of cold refilled Mount Franklin water bottles from the fridge and putting them in the bag. 'Just shove your stuff in there,' I said, before walking through the cool room to find Emmett and Rose, who were sucking some serious face when I barged in without knocking.

'Keep it G-rated, people,' I demanded, covering my eyes as they jumped apart, pash rash on their necks. 'You're taking Edward and I to the pool, Em,' I told him, before walking out, getting Edward, and going to sit in the backseat of my brother's car. I turned on the radio, and sung along to the Ting Tings and Cat Empire on Triple J until Emmett and Rose came.

'I'm not going to the pool twice, Isabella, so you're going to have to wait for Rose,' Emmett said gruffly, still extremely and thoroughly annoyed at me, even so to use my full name. Rose gave me an embarrassed but empathic smile from the rear view mirror, before Em roughly adjusted it so he could see.

Forever taunting, I apologized to Edward, matter-of-factly, 'I'm sorry. He's going through a bit of PMS at the moment. It's nothing personal.' Edward made an amused snorting sound, trying to stifle a laugh, while Rose didn't hold back. Emmett slammed the brakes on the car, which was heading down the driveway, in frustration, while I grinned.

Rose gave me a high-five from the front seat, and Emmett grumbled a slightly incoherent, 'Don't encourage her.'

I looked over to Edward, who was smiling out the window. Inconspicuously, without taking his eyes off the streets around our homes he'd been trying to memorize on brief trips into town, he slid his hand across the backseat, for me to low-five. I did, but just before our hands made contact, he drew his away, leaving me to smack the fake-leather of the interior, like a lunatic. Rose gave me a puzzled look. 'Too slow,' Edward murmured, just for me, before turning to face me again. He grinned mischievously, before turning away again.

In my home town of Bendigo, the pool is rather large, for a central Victorian city. There is an Olympic-standard pool for laps, but unless a swimming carnival is taking place, half of this pool is sectioned off for mucking around in.

There is a kid's pool, which is about a metre deep and up to my hips, with a slide that has just the wrong angle to it so that you hurt your tailbone each time.. An octagonal toddler's pool with some of the coolest things: frogs spraying water jets from their mouths at each corner, three giant flowers with water flowing around the petals' perimeter, like a shower, and a big red car that I still fit in which has water spraying placidly out of the horn and a bump on the front of the hood. Also, bordering the edges are small seats that are some water-proof, squishy material.

Then, best of all, is the dive pool: two diving boards of one and three metres; two diving platforms of five and ten metres, and a massive, twirling slide, somewhat weirdly but funnily named the 'Hoobee Tubee'.

When we arrive, Jasper and Alice are already there. From a distance, I think I see Jess and Mike in the deep pool, splashing each other, but I'm not sure, because it's absolutely packed. If it is them, Jess hasn't really invested in a bikini this year, because not much is covering her.

Alice is trying to tan her perfectly gorgeous figure, and in a space Alice reserved by cluttering her and Jasper's belongings in a four-metre radius around them. Rose lays her towel down adjacent to Al's when she spots her. I am immediately jealous of Rose's bikini. The blue plaid strapless number is just the same hue as her eyes in some spots, and her golden hair, loosely hanging to just above her elbows, compliments her golden skin.

I'd gone shopping with Alice, so I already knew how hers looked on, but not in this setting. Its' crazy abstract design fitted her personality, and it had the same jet black colour as her hair.

Mine didn't look nearly as good as either of those. Alice had assured me - after a long hot day of Year 9 exams at the end of last year - it looked great, but I wasn't convinced. The black and white number had intricate swirl and pattern on it. It's too hard to be sure – the pattern is so small – but I think, that if a large amount of the material was spread out, it'd have some sort of paisley theme going on.

Anyway, Rose stripped off her T-shirt as she sat on her towel, to reveal her bikini beneath, while Emmett watched appreciatively. She caught him ogling her – he really isn't very discreet about these things – and gave him an 'If you look at me like that in a public place like this I will hurt you,' look.

Typically enough, he gave her back a 'Well, then, how about a smack?' look, dripping with sarcasm, one eyebrow raised. Ew.

Deciding I couldn't look more un-tanned if I tried, I grabbed my towel from my bag, laid it next to my two friends, sat down, and stripped off my boardies and T-shirt.

I shoved my sunnies on, and lay down. I heard Emmett making some primal, masculine, provoked and encouraged but vile noise; something along the lines of, 'Oii, oii!' mixed with monkey hoots.

I peeked one eye open, squinting as the sun was very bright, and saw my brothers nudging an embarrassed Edward who was staring at his feet. I was curious, but couldn't be bothered having to use my stomach muscles in an effort to sit up, so I stayed put, content with rolling my eyes.

**Hope you all liked! It's a little longer than most of the chapters so far, but it took me a while to find a good place to cut it off. All of the girls' bikinis, Bella's Country Road tote and a link to the Bendigo pool website – yes, I wasn't making it up – which has a slide show down the bottom of the page full of the images that inspired the description. Have fun, and please review! **


	5. Dinner & One Messed Up Show

**Hey guys!!! I really, really love summer holidays, and now they've arrived, the updates will, too, especially with my fab new beta, Madame-Bovary-was-framed !!! Props for her. Hope you all like the chap – it's a little shorter than usual, but it's still good, it's still good (flashbacks of Simsons episode with flying pig :D ) Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, as if….**

We all lay around our towels, either a lemonade icy pole, or packet of salt n vinegar chips in hand. It was around twenty to five, and we'd spent a good six hours here.

After I'd gotten a respectable tan (admittedly, with the help of Rose's tinted moisturizer) we'd all jumped into the pool, gotten out, chilled, went down the water slide a ridiculous amount of times, relaxed, swam, went bombing into the diving pool from the five metre platforms – except for Em, who went sailing of the ten metre platform, executing several awesome flips before landing on the water with a respectable _crack_. The rest of the afternoon, Emmett's stomach had been bright red, and he'd gone up to first aid, to see if they had some sort of cream for this.

Rose and Alice were now flipping through Just Jeans sale catalogue, circling things they were going to get tomorrow. Apparently, I wasn't allowed to come, as it was my birthday in a week and a bit, and they always spent ridiculous amounts of money making sure I looked socially acceptable in public, and I let them say this because they were the most amazing shoppers: with $50, they could buy me thirteen pieces of vintage clothing, which I always loved and they never got a size wrong.

Sure, they'd had infinite practice, but still – they never ceased to amaze me with the bounty they came out with.

Emmett was tutoring Edward in a game of footy, telling him that 'maybe one day, you could do hangers like Dale Thomas!'

Of course, Edward knew from the newspaper front page spreads cut out and hung up on my wall since Year six that Dale Thomas was, by far, the sexiest and best AFL player there is.

Jasper and I sat on towels next to one another, sharing his iPod, listening to old Ben Folds Five, when Emmett's ringtone started screaming that it was _bringing Sexy Back_ to us, disturbing a smooching couple a few metres away from our camp, who glared rudely.

'Quick! Get it off!' ordered Jasper, who frantically lunged at the vibrating phone, pulling it to his ear.

'Oh, hey Mum…Yep…Out the front?...okay. Cool. See you-…okay, Mum. Bye'

'Mum?' I asked him.

'Yup. We're meeting her out the front-' he checked his watch '-now. Grab Those two. I'll pack up.'

'Where are we going?'

'Dinner. Out.'

I walked over to where Edward was practicing drop-punts, and Emmett was giving him strict instructions. 'Now, Ed. That's it – a few run up steps- and YES! You've got it!'

'Emmett! We're going!' He turned around to look at me.

'When?'

'Now. We're going out to tea. Meeting Mum out the front. You too , Edward.'

He smiled, and I regretted how I had left our conversation this morning – now I had no idea where things stood between us. I had no idea whether I could hug him or hold his hand. Whether he thought we were only friends or…not.

When we got home, the four of us ran into the house to get changed while Mum stayed in the car, trying to contact Dad to get him to meet us at the restaurant.

After pulling on a bright red dress and black flats, I ran into the bathroom to towel dry my hair. I smeared on some bright crimson lipstick – as I'm not the most humble dresser - and was downstairs in just over eight minutes.

'Jasper! Hurry Up!' I shouted at him, hearing a spraying of Lynx in the background.

Emmett and Edward were already in the car, Emmett fine-tuning the radio to the most mainstream channel he could find, while Edward quizzed him on what he liked. Mum sat, furiously punching numbers into her phone, face red with frustration and the heat. 'All these different numbers for the hospital and not one of them useful' she muttered.

Jasper skidded into the car, slamming the door behind him.

'Did you lock the house?' Mum asked him routinely. Jasper dove out of the car and was back within thirty seconds, panting.

'Yeah,' he replied. I cracked up. Jasper was chronically idiotic. 'What?' he asked, annoyed that his efforts were being ridiculed.

'Nothing.'

'She looked at your face, Jazz,' Emmett told him, and I motioned for him to give me a high five.

'Oh, encore! Nicely done!' I whooped.

'Mature, people. Wow.' Jasper muttered to the window. 'Classy.'

The restaurant – Lollita's – was a small Italian that was off a quiet street just out of the CBD. Mum and Dad had discovered it first when they were looking for houses a few blocks up. Back then, it apparently had orange lino and brown and green walls.

Now, the chestnut and red theme fit it perfectly, crowned off with a ridiculous amount of fairy lights. The pastas and pizzas were brilliant, and the desserts – heavenly.

I only allowed myself the treat of Nutella filled puff pastry scrolls every so often, and as we walked in it seemed as if that opportunity was well overdue.

As I sat down, I saw a group of girls – a year or so younger than me – huddled and staring at us. Then, I realized that 'us' was in fact Edward. When Mum and Emmett went up to the bar to order drinks, one of the taller of the five came over to our table.

She had long dark hair – although the majority were poorly disguised extensions, and wore a strapless purple boob-tube and a black denim skirt. The pink gloss topped it off nicely.

'Hey,' she said. 'I'm Natalie. I haven't seen you round. Are you new?'

'I'm on exchange,' he told her.

She seemed to start at his accent. 'Oh! Right, of course. I see. Lol. I'm such an idiot!' Who says "lol" out loud? She continued. 'Anyway, my friend over there, Tanya, well she was wondering if she could maybe get your number. She's a little shy, see.' She pointed to a girl with a round face and peroxide blond, straight hair that was frizzy from over-use of a hair straightner, with the mandatory black roots. She was wearing a tight dress, but didn't quite have body to pull it off. _Or maybe you're just jealous_, the malicious conscience told me. Tanya was staring over at us, with a look of desperation in her muddy, bloodshot eyes.

'Ah… I guess.' The girl – Natalie – handed him a pen, and he jotted a sequence of numbers down on a napkin.

'Thank-you so much. She'll be in touch. Real soon.' With that, she flounced back to her table, her friends squealing as she showed them the number and told him how 'he's totally American – you can tell by the accent. So hot, right?'

'Edward, high-five! Totally cool.' Jasper held his palm up, which Edward hit hesitantly.

'Wow, Yeah, cool as! You know, 'cause you just totally give your number to random young girls in a foreign country,' I fumed

'Well, I couldn't just say no,' he said.

'Edward? You weren't obligated to give her it. It was your choice. She could be some stalker freak. You might have to freaking get a new identity from Social Security.'

'Bells, chillax. All he did was give a girl his number. It's all good.'

Mum and Emmett returned then, spreading the three Cokes, a tall, round glass of red wine and bottle of beer around the table.

Jasper started arguing with Mum about whether he could have a glass of wine. Mum was firm, saying that just because he was in Year 12, he still had another ten months to wait before his becoming of age.

I laughed at his disgruntled expression, because I seemed to need something to lighten my mood. I couldn't look Edward in the eye, even though I knew he was trying to catch mine.

When I couldn't stand the noises of clattering cutlery and grotesque, drunken laughs anymore, I stood up to go to the toilet.

Of course, while washing my hands, I met Natalie in there. 'Hey,' she said.

'Hi.'

'You know that guy you're with? He's your brother, right?'

'No,' I said truthfully.

'Oh. So he's staying with your family?'

'No,' I lied.

'Then how do you know him?'

I considered my answer carefully. 'We work for the FBI. We're doing a case on teen girls and pointless infatuations.'

'Really?'

'No,' I laughed. 'I just thought that'd fit. With your friend, _Tanya_.' Natalie didn't seem to understand what I was saying, but I could tell she'd go back to the pack of girls who sent her in after me and tell them everything she'd managed to find out about the 'totally hot American guy, ohmigawd!'. Perhaps one of them was bright enough to know what I was trying to get across.

'Well, actually, she sent me here to talk to you,' she said, drawing the subject away from her lack of comprehension, proving my hypothesis in the process. 'She wants to know that guy's name.'

I smiled. 'Thom. With a h.' _Naughty_, the conscience scolded.

'Thanks,' she said appreciatively, before I walked out.

At the table, my mood was a lot better, although I couldn't look at him for long. I joined in the conversation a little, and munched on my salad thoughtfully.

I often looked over to the table full of girls, to find Tanya staring at us.

As we were leaving, I saw her get out her phone, then stare after Edward to see if he pulled out his. As the front door swung shut, I heard soothings of 'He probably just left it at home, Tanny.'

As soon as we got home, I jumped from the car to get to my room. I decided I needed an early night, and the flurry of feelings inside me was making me anxious and sick.

While I was brushing my teeth, I heard a soft knock on the door. 'Can I come in?' he asked.

No! Of course he could not come in! Who did he think he was? So, he got to mess around with an unknown girl from the local high school, but then at the end of the day, nothing mattered because his breath was a little smelly? Not likely.

My impressions of American guys from when I was thirteen and watching ridiculous shows aimed at tween audiences didn't seem so far off now – the player, the heart breaker, and the drop-dead-gorgeous guy. My problem was that these three seemed to be rolled into one: Edward.

'I'm almost done,' I told him, before re-tying my hair and spitting out some Listerine. I knew this would register with him, as I usually let him in no matter what.

I stared gloomily in the mirror, at the girl with the flat eyes and smudged lipstick she forgot to take off before she brushed her teeth. _Shit_, I thought. I didn't know what was wrong with her; why all of her relationships ended up in pieces. Why she couldn't substantiate anything with anyone except her family and those considered that way.

I stared at the girl for a long while, pondering, time as well as halted. A crash downstairs started me, and I went back into doing mode. I shoved away all of my bottles and lotions and creams, slamming the cupboard door because it felt so good.

'Bathroom's free,' I called with obvious aggravation, before leaving through my door.

I couldn't believe he'd given a girl his number less than twelve hours after he kissed me and perved on me in a bikini. But most of all, I couldn't believe that Edward – my Edward, who I'd shared so many tender moments with over his brief stay – had just used me, and most probably the girl from the restaurant.

I tried texting Alice, but she didn't answer and I wasn't in the mood for Rose's 'guys suck,' theories or Jessica's live and learn attitude, or worst of all, Angela's pity, so I curled up in bed, not bothering with my new book.

A text message a few minutes later startled me just as I started to drift off.

**1**/792: You have 1 unread messages.

792 – Edward

_Im really sorry. If it helps, I blocked the number. So sorry. E_

Knowing that if I did nothing, I wouldn't fall asleep until three, I tried halfheartedly to compose a dignified, collected reply, but after five minutes of punching and stabbing the delete button on the keypad repeatedly, I gave up and snapped the stupid thing shut with a resounding, definite snap.

A wave of drowsiness swept lazily over me, and I resolved that I would figure this out tomorrow.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

I was fed up with my over-reacting, and wanted to sleep, so I turned off my phone, and for the first time, I cried myself to sleep over a boy.

* * *

**Hope you all liked it! Next update should be soon!**

**XXXX Rose**


	6. Corny Speeches & The Laundry Incident

**Hey guys! Hope you like this chapter! It's actually a miracle you got it now rather than in five days, but because my beta is so awesome, so did it all in one night so I'm now able to publish it and YAY! Claps for my beta, everyone! Also, just to clarify, I changed the date of Bella's birthday. It's now a couple days before Christmas. Enjoy, Rose.**

'Bella?' A soft but menacing voice woke me, then small hands shook my sides. 'Bella, get the hell up.'

I sleepily opened my eyes. 'Alice?' I asked, gazing at the face above me.

'And me!' Deep beneath a cascade of blond curls, a face poked into my narrowed line of sight.

'Hey, Rosie. Why… Why are you here?'

'It's your birthday! Duh! Now get up!' Alice chirped in an unnatural octave.

'Gimme…a minute….' I trailed.

'Now!' they shouted in unison.  
I flung my legs over the side of the bed, not self-conscious at all with the fact I'd only worn boy briefs and a singlet to bed last night. Both girls had seen me in much less since our childhood.

'Uggghhhhhh…. What time is it?'

'Stop complaining. You think it was easy for me?' Rose scolded. She was, by far, the worst morning person in the central Victoria.

'Seven,' Al replied, as if it could be five and it wouldn't make a difference. When it came to sleeping habits, Rose and Al were polar opposites, although Alice had a far larger caffeine intake. Rose wouldn't drink coffee, as she said it gave her bags and wrinkles.

Alice then thrust several floppy packages upon me that obviously contained the purchases from the day after the pool. 'Don't open them yet. Your mum's making us all brekkie, so you're gonna open them all then. And put some actual PJs on for that, or else Edward will start drooling.'

'Shut the fuck up,' I muttered as I pulled spotty Minnie Mouse shorts and a more modest singlet from my drawers. I shoved them on top of what I on already had, then grabbed a black cardi. 'Come on. Let's get this over with.'

Once I had trudged down the too-steep stairs, I found everyone seated around the dining table: Mum, Dad, Emmett, Jasper, Louisa, David and Carol. And Edward. Rose and Alice came down with me, Rose looking more depressed than I while Alice looked as bubbly as Fanta. She flew over and jumped into Jasper's lap giving him a peck on the cheek. A pile of presents were stacked on table: a mess of ribbon and coloured paper and bows.

I sat down looking at the presents gloomily. Mum dug around in the pile pulling out all the presents from her and Dad. There was a box of Lindt chocolates (I made a mental note to find a good hiding place for these so Jazz didn't steal them), several books in a series I was yet to finish that Alice owned but apparently conveniently had "lost" them. I think she was just afraid of dog ears that seemed an inevitable part of my borrowing.

The last present from Mum and Dad was an envelope. When I opened it a wad of cash fell out. I picked it up feeling slightly foolish for opening an envelope upside down, and counted through the bills.

It came to a grand total of $750. 'Guys, you really…wow. Thank you so much.'

'It's you sweet sixteenth, right? That means you need something special. And I think you're old enough now to be able to choose those.' Mum smiled at me generously, trusting I would do the right thing with the money.

Jazz and Emmett were next. Jasper handed me a small present.

It was a bar of soap.

'Thought it might come in handy' said Emmett, trying really hard not to crack up.

'Gee thanks guys. Halaaaaaaaaaaaaarious' I said keeping a straight face.

'Nah, jokes. Here's your real present' said Emmett . It was a pair of Ray Ban sunnies; red with white prints on the frame.

'Wow, guys! Thank-you! You must have spent a bit on these. You really shouldn't have,' I gushed over the awesome present they had invested in.

'We didn't,' Jasper told me. 'You know my mate Chris? Well, he went to Thailand a week ago. We got him to mail them to us.'

'Oh. Nice,' I said spitefully.

'Oh, Jasper. Come on. Let's be nice,' Mum said.

'Okay next ones! These are from your grandparents, Bells,' Dad informed me, and one by one I opened them so I had two piles: one, a mountain of presents which consisted of clothes, chocolate and books, mostly; and the other, which was wrapping paper and ribbon. After Al scavenged all of the decent ribbons from the pile, it was put in the bin, and the other lugged up to my room. Alice and Rose followed me up.

'So,' I said. 'Who's up for the pool?'

'Actually Bells, we have some shopping to do.'

'Yep. We have to go out, so get dressed and showered,' Rose added.

'What? What are we getting?'

'You'll find out later. You just need to bring the money you got. Now go!' Alice said. When I didn't move, she chucked one of my new dresses at me then pulled out undies and a bra from my draws.

'Fine, fine! I'm going! Jeez!'

When we arrived at the shopping centre, Rose pulled me straight to one of the shops I usually didn't have a) the money, and b) the guts to go into. One of the ones where everywhere you look there is_ another _too-short, chicken-filleted dress, with an even shorter skirt than the last.

But apparently, this is where Rose gets all of her party-ceasing dresses. 'You just gotta look at the back of each rack. That's where all the good stuff is,' she told me.

'Oh,' I said. And to think, this entire time, I'd been looking on the front of racks for my clothing. Judging by the fervour with which Rose pulled the many coat hangers forward, I'd really been missing out.

She handed me a couple dresses, to go try on, then a few to Alice who was humming and harring over the choices. 'Go, children.'

The first dress I had been forced into was red with a cross-over step back. It was tight. Like, really tight. Like, 'Rose, I'm not wearing this dress! It's worse than that corset you made me try on last year!' tight.

The second was gorgeous and floaty and green, and had little embroidered patterns on the top part, but somehow not me at all. I regretfully hung it back up.

The third was, as Goldilocks would say, _just right_. It was less of a formal-ish dress like the other two dresses and more of a summer dinner dress, but I liked more than anything else I had seen in the shop. The top past of it was a tiny floral print, while the skirt was black.

Rose handed me the thick black high-waisted belt she was wearing and it fit nicely, so it was decided that would be my outfit for tonight.

Not that I knew what 'tonight' was. Rose and Al had hinted that we were going out, but I hadn't planned a party because Mum had said it would be too hard with Edward over and Christmas in a week. 'We'll make it up and have you a ripper seventeenth,' she'd told me, and I'd thanked her after scolding her for saying 'ripper'.

But apparently, these guys had planned something.

Really, I should have expected it: as if these two would let my 'sweet sixteenth' go unnoticed. But still, I hated being left in the dark when it came to things like my birthday.

Neither of them decided to buy a dress, content with ones they had at home from previous occasions, so we headed off for the shoe shop, which was Alice's area of complete and utter expertise.

After I had been tortured (being made to hobble around a shop, wearing stilt-heels, which had particularly shiny and slippery looking tiles) we decided to take a lunch break before… whatever was next in line for my afternoon of spending.

I had ended up buying a pair of ridiculously high black stilettos, with multiple straps and a lace ankle-band-thing that covered most of the top of my foot.

They had cost me, but I loved them. And, not trying to be full of myself, but they made my legs look… hot. That's pretty much the only word to describe them.

After filling lunch of Subway (where Al insisted that we didn't have meat because we would bloat or something like that for tonight) they took me to the cosmetic counters in Myers.

At the _Maybelline_ counter, they introduced me to a lady they were on first-name terms with, Jane, who convinced me she would 'transform you into a gorgeous goddess,' while Alice and Rose cracked up behind her.

After Al had shown her the dress and shoes, she decided to go for a 'smokey-eyes, deep, enchanting lips' look.

'Ok,' I agreed, wondering what the hell she was going on about. Jane was a genuinely friendly person, but a bit away with the pixies and very dedicated and believing in what she did.

By the end of the two-and-a-half hour session, my face felt like it had been made into putty, moulded, set and then had been hacked away at with sandpaper until it was smooth again.

There had been the dead-skin removing scrub, the multiple moisturizers that each had some property that would make my face sparkle, or reduce hickie marks or something, and then the primer and concealer and foundation and blush and bronzer and eyeliner and liquid eyeliner and mascara and eye shadow and eye glitter and lip-liner and lipstick and lip-gloss and lip-setter and everything I don't remember even though she expertly ran me through what they were and what they did as she applied them.

But the finished product staring back through the mirror at me seemed to think it was worth it, so who was I to argue?

Rose and Alice, both with limited cash supplies, got the basics done, before saying thank-you to, and paying, Jane and leading me to the hairdressers and manicurist across the plaza.

People stared a little at my extensive make-up, but I didn't really care. It's not like it's the first time people stared at me because of how I looked.

This instantaneously reminded me of the night a week or so ago at Lollita's. You know, the one with Tanya and Natalie and the rest of their band of skanky girls?

And then Edward.

We hadn't really resolved anything yet. We still used the bathroom separately, and didn't really talk.

I think this is the thing Mum really dreaded when she applied for a boy my age.

I hadn't really thought about Edward and me at all today, except for a bit over breakfast. The birthday high had made me numb about my guy problems, but now they were back in my head, they weren't going away easily.

Throughout the entirety of the hairdressing, then the manicure and pedicure, I couldn't shake the ridiculous combination of worry and jealousy and desperation and…like. Serious like.

For Edward.

And, hard as I tried, I couldn't shake it. Edward was here to stay, not only on the continent, but in my heart. I mean, of course if we didn't hit it off over the next year and he went back to America, no damage done (to him, at least) I'd get over him, sure. But, until the date of his departure, it seemed like I would be hung up on him.

Which sucked majorly.

Because, according to his behaviour over the last week, I wasn't in his heart. My feelings were unrequited.

And he was absolutely gorgeous and smart and talented and funny, so there was no way that a girl at school wouldn't ask him out.

One day, I wouldn't be around to chuck a tantrum about him giving his number to someone.

But then I realized: Why couldn't I be that girl? The one who asked him out?

The party started at 9.

Cars lined each side of the street outside our house, and then in all the side streets.

It had turned out, that the shopping trip was not only to buy me an outfit for tonight, but so everyone could ship away to my place, without anything drawing my attention to the unnatural amount of faces crowding my living room.

Rose had insisted that we went back to hers after we finished in the mall.

We'd gotten ready, which was pretty much only getting changed, then Carol had driven us to the cinemas, where we had seen the new _Midnight Series_ movie, where we were all under strict instructions from Jane not to eat or drink anything in order to avoid smudging or imperfections.

Man, I could sure teach her _heaps _about imperfections.

Then, as we exited the place, Carol was waiting again, ready to take us to the 'venue' as it was called before the 'arrival', another silly precautionary nickname fashioned by my two best friends.

The place had erupted with a chorus of '_Happy Birthday Bella!_' when I'd stepped inside, and then they'd sung to me, while I stared, cross-eyed, at the enormous cake sitting in front of me, wondering how you were meant to cut tiers.

After all the celebratory, traditional kafuffle was over, everyone spread out between the lounge and dining rooms, the kitchen and both the upstairs and downstairs hallways.

I bet my parents were happy that Emmett, Jazz and I had pressured them into getting locks for all of the bedrooms before Emmett's eighteenth. It had turned out to be _very_ worth it.

I didn't realize I had that many friends.

I chatted to everyone, but it wasn't long before the DJ Mum and Dad had hired really pumped the music and everyone had cleared a space by opening the folding doors between the living room and dining room to make this one massive…space.

All the furniture was pushed up against the wall, and the lights were turned off, except for a few coloured ones the DJ, Philip, had brought with him.

I'm fairly sure someone gave Philip my iTunes library, because he was constantly pounding my faves through the surround speakers Mum and Dad had bought but never connected until now.

Constantly, familiar faces from school pooped up in front of me, saying stuff like 'Great party, Bella!' and 'I'm having so much fun, Bella!' or even occasionally, 'Wow, I love your dress Bella!'

While I was dancing with Alice and Rose and Angela, I felt a hand on the back of my shoulder, trying to get my attention.

It was Mike, the last person I expected to approach me on my birthday, after what happened at the last party we'd been to.

'I can't find Jess!' he managed to shout over the thumping bassline.

'And?'

'Can you please help me find her? I don't know my way around your house.'

He seemed scared, so I reluctantly said, 'ok,' figuring it would only take five minutes.

Twenty minutes later, we'd searched every nook and cranny of the house that was not locked. 'Are you sure she couldn't have gone into one of the rooms then locked it behind her?' He was obviously terrified she'd gotten herself blind then gone to bed with some random guy she didn't know.

'I'm sure,' I answered. 'Mum and Dad have the keys, and they're next door.'

But then I realized the one place we hadn't checked. 'Come on,' I said, navigating through the crowd, pulling him towards the laundry.

Before we even got into the room, we heard Jessica's voice over the crowd.

'But Edwaaaaaaard!'

'Jessica, please just go,' he replied. Mike and I opened the door and stepped in, but they both had their backs facing us, and didn't notice our presence.

She giggled manically. 'No one'll eeever find out!'

'Jessi-' I think he saw something out of the corner of his eye, because Edward whirled on the spot to face us. His eyes widened. 'Bella…I…It's not what it looks like,' he stammered.

I noticed Mike was no longer standing next to me. He must have run as soon as he realised what Jess was getting to.

'Yeah,' I said softly, before turning and following Mike's route out. I heard a cry of 'Bella! Wait!' from behind, but I didn't stop for him. Although I kept walking, at some stage I must have passed Alice, Rose and Angela, because when I stopped next door at Sue's house to ring to bell, they waited quietly a few paces back.

'Oh, Bella! What can I do for you?' Her bright face fell when she saw mine.

'Mum, please.'

She hurried off quickly, to get my mother, and Alice hugged me silently from behind. 'What's wrong, Bella?' was the first thing my mother said when she entered the hallway.

'I just need my key,' I said, and Mum took the key on a green string around her neck off, and handed it to me.

'Have fun, tonight, Bells, okay?' she sounded concerned.

'Yeah.' When she didn't seem convinced, I continued, 'I just need to get myself cleaned up.' She nodded, then said goodnight and closed the door.

An hour later, up in my bathroom, with every door on the floor locked, I stood adjusting the powder on my face, my three best friends around me.

Angela was on the closed toilet seat, Rose sat in the empty bathtub that hadn't been used for years, and Alice was situated next to me on top of the counter. We'd pretty much spent the entire sixty minutes up here, bitching away to our heart's content and shovelling down my birthday chocolate. It probably wasn't the best way of dealing with what had just happened, but was by far the most effective method.

I appraised myself in the mirror. You couldn't tell I'd been crying if you weren't closer than a metre to my face, and it had been this way for the last fifteen minutes of me applying the powder. With a heavy irritated sigh, Alice grabbed the powder puff off me, and dabbed it on my face. When she was done about ten seconds later, I looked into the mirror again. All tear traces were gone. I gave Alice an appreciative smile. She beamed back.

I joined Rose, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, remembering my former gloom. 'Do we have to go back down?' I asked.

The three of them looked at each other before Angela answered, 'Oh, yes,' and the other two nodded.

I pouted unhappily.

'Come on.' Rose stood up, stepped over the edge of the tub and pulled her bright pink heels back on. She grabbed my hand, pulling me back downstairs with the others, pausing only to let me lock my bedroom on the way out.

When we returned to the lounge and dining rooms full of dancing, a makeshift stage was set up, constructed from out large wooden table. Jasper and Emmett sat on it, and when they spotted us in the crowd, they waved us over. We all sat up on the table, and the music faded out and everyone turned towards us, and Jazz and Em stood up to deliver a speech they had written on a bit of loose lined paper.

Trust them to take each word in turn.

'We,' Emmett began.

'Are,' Jasper continued.

'Here.'

'To.'

'Say.'

'Happy.'

'Birthday.'

'To.'

'Our.'

'Younger.'

'Sister.'

'Bella.' They paused for a moment like a normal person would before continuing on with their so called 'speech'.

'She.'

'Is.'

'Pretty.'

'Friggin.'

'Awesome.'

'When.'

'It.'

'Comes.'

'To.'

'Sisters.'

'And.'

'We.'

'Love.'

'Her.' Another pause.

'Merry.'

'Christmas.'

'To.'

'All.'

'Of.'

'You.'

'Thanks.'

They both sat down again, largely applauded. Ever since Emmett's killer School Captain speeches, he was loved by the entire student body. He could have gone up there, said "Train." sat down, and had the kids in stitches.

Alice, Rose and Angela got up next.

'Hey everyone! Hope you're all enjoying tonight?' A huge response from everyone gave Alice positive feedback. 'Well, the three of us each have something to say about Bells here. So here goes. She is the nicest, most accommodating and comforting people in the history of the universe. And for this we will forever be grateful.' Alice took a petite courtesy and everyone clapped.

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

Angela said, 'Bella has always been such an amazing person to me. She was the reason I had my first kiss, and I'm still with the guy. She's such a strong person, and I can always rely on her. She is also really smart. She helped me so much in the English exams last year. And I got 85%! For me, that is beyond awesome. So I want to say thank-you to her.' Everyone clapped once again. I was starting to feel sorry for their hands.

Rose was next, and she started with a bang. 'Look at her. Isn't she just gorgeous? That dress looked like my Nan's robe when it was on the hanger, but on her it could be in _Teen Vogue_. Who agrees?' A large applaud agreed. 'And, also, she can eat as much as she wants, and she won't put on any weight whatsoever. How much does that suck for all of us?' Another applause. 'Anyway, my aim in coming up here was not to sound like the thick materialistic blond, and my momentary rant is over, so on a more serious note: Bella has been my shining beacon during our friendship. She has helped me through so much.'

Rose seemed to take a brief breath, contemplating something, and then gave a tiny nod of her head, deciding something. 'I don't think many of you know this, but a couple years back, I had a bad eating disorder. We don't need to get into the details, but let's just say Bells was the only one who I knew I could trust absolutely. It was also the same when my Dad died. I can never pay her back for that, and I doubt I'll ever have the chance to return the favour, but if I did, I would. So I want to say thank you. You are my rock, Bella.'

I was completely bawling now, and I knew my eye make-up was running, but I didn't care. I knew from that moment that these people on this stage would always be home for me.

**That's it for now, but tune in next time for more action. Until then, a great way to entertain your self would be pressing that little green button down there and reviewing. Merry Christmas, Rose xxx**


	7. Tacky Lights & Spaghetti Goodness

**Guys, I'm so sorry about how long this took! It's summer holidays, so I've been away for a couple weeks without my laptop, and most days have been out with friends. Sorry!**

I want to thank my beta, Madame-Bovary-was-framed, for her awesome, quick betaing magic, and her enthusiastic participation in our never-ending convos. I also want to thank my friend who shall remain nameless (although she anonymously reviews on occasion under the name of Dr Jan Itor), for helping me with the car trip scene. Fact: Tim is based on a comedian, Tim Minchin, who is pretty much the coolest comedian ever. If you haven't heard of him, youTube him now. Hope you gets some laughs out of this one, guys.

**So, without further ado, let us begin:  
Disclaimer: If I say it's mine, will Steph come a-knocking on my door to get it back?**

Christmas Eve came all too soon. By noon Mum had everyone packed up in the car as well as three nights worth of clothes and half a trailer full of Christmas presents, which we'd all frantically realized we needed to buy about a week ago, thus setting us out on a shopping-centre buying rampage.

Emmett, Rose, Jasper and I were in Emmett's car while Alice had volunteered Edward and herself to go with Mum and Dad, under the pretence that she needed to get to know him better and in the process, sparing me the three hour car ride with him.

Since the Jessica 'incident', things had been worse between us. I knew it wasn't really his fault that it had happened; I think mostly I was upset with him for letting himself be put in that situation.

Carol, David and Louisa were also coming down, keen on seeing Mum's sister Nina, another of their friends from high school.

'So,' said Rose, after a particularly good song finished and she turned down the radio from the front seat she'd earned from doing who knows what with my elder brother. 'Which guys in your family are hot?'

Emmett took his eyes off the road to spin around to Rose and shout, 'Aren't you taken!?'

'Emmett!!' I screamed as he swerved to avoid a two tonne truck. 'Fuck! Keep your eyes on the road!'

'Well,' began Rose sweetly. 'You never know what could happen to you - I have to plan for these things.'

'Ah- Ba- Gah-' fumbled Emmett exasperatedly.

'So… hot guys?' Rose said, and when she received an icy silence from her boyfriend, she taunted, 'Jasper will tell me.' She used that sickly sweet voice that made me want to puke.

'Tim,' said Jazz.

'Who's he?'

'Bella will tell you,' replied Jazz condescendingly.

I went bright red. 'What?' I said pretending that I didn't know what he was talking about.

'Bella, everyone knows you had a thing for him for ages,' sniggered Emmett.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said then turned to Rose. 'He's our cousin, he's a really nice guy, but don't get your hopes up - he's been with his girlfriend forever.'

'Was that a hint of bitterness I detect in your voice, dear sister?' joked Jasper.

'Shut up!' I said angrily.

'Children, children, calm down,' said Emmett patronizingly.

Jasper and I glared at him. Then after a two minute awkward silence, Jasper started up again. 'I don't know why she liked him anyway. He's a ranga.' Emmett nodded at his younger brother, agreeing.

'He's strawberry blond! You always tease him about that and it's not fair! Just 'cause his hair looks better straightened than yours does! You've got some of that gene too, anyway.'

'What?!' he cried, outraged. 'I'm_ so_ not a ranga! And my hair looks fine straightened. It's just not co-operating today.'

'Oh, yeah, okay. Sure, older brother. And you know what he got that you didn't apart from awesomeness? Height! That's right! You're a fucking short-ass, Jasper!' By this point everyone was staring at me, quite possibly frightened by my outburst. 'You just tease his hair a lot, okay?' I mumbled.

'Well, there is enough of it!' Jasper retorted, but before I could reply, Rose cut in.

'Okay guys, I know you're dysfunctional, but this doesn't answer my question. On a scale of one to ten, how hot is he?'

'Nine and a half,' I answer confidently.

Jasper, not able to resist temptation, jumped in with, 'Is that with or with_o__ut_ his tranny mascara?'

'That was just for the school concert where he was lead pianist. He wanted people to be able to make out his eyes from the back of the auditorium!'

'But he told me after that he liked it! And he might do it again. There's something not right about him…'

'He's perfectly normal! Just 'cause he's never been a party guy!'

'Except my eighteenth,' Emmett chipped in, grinning at some old memory.

'Frig, those contacts were creepy,' added Jasper.

'They weren't contacts! That's his natural colour!'

'Bells, they were luminescent purple.'

'They're aqua!'

'Shut the fuck up! Come on guys. I was just trying to initiate conversation, not a family breakdown. It's Christmas. Let's everybody be nice,' Rose ranted.

'Fine,' I mumbled.

'Fine,' Jasper grunted.

'Good. Now, who's going to be there?'

'Well,' I began, 'There's Aunty Nina and Uncle Chris. It's their house, and their kids are Lilly and Violet – they're twins, and are eleven. Jason is fourteen. And Tim who's twenty.'

'He's bringing Sarah,' Emmett added.

'That his girlfriend?' Rose asked.

'Yup,' Jasper answered, popping the 'p' and grinning at me. I hit him.

'Ow! That hurt!'

'Get over yourself.'

'How can I with a face like this?'

'Oh yeah, would you like me to fix that for you?'

Emmett groaned heavily and stopped the car on the side of the road. 'Bella! In the front! Now!' I undid my seatbelt and walked around to the front seat, where Rose was picking up the contents of her bag. She got out and went to sit in the back while I sat in the passenger seat.

'Good,' Emmett said and drove off again. No one talked for at least half an hour, and I was too self-conscious to turn up the radio, afraid that Emmett would scream again and wait for Mum and Dad to catch up and then make me swap with Alice.

'So, will anyone else be there?' Rose asked timidly.

'Yeah,' Jasper said softly. 'Mum's parents and Dad's Mum. Mum's are Roslyn and Pete and Dad's mum is Annie. Dad's sister Genevieve will be there too, but just for a little while for lunch. She's another friend of Aunty Jean's, but a year below our parents.'

'Oh, I remember her. She came over to help Mum when Dad left,' Rose said.

'Yeah,' said Jasper.

'Doesn't she have some really awesome job?'

'She's a design technician for Gucci,' I answered.

'What?! Do you think she'd look at some of my designs? I've got my visual diary with me. And a couple of skirts I've made.'

'Sure she would. I'll introduce you two.'

'Ohmigawd! I have to tell Alice!' And with that, Rose pulled out her mobile and punched away at the keys, giggling giddily whenever she made a mistake and had to delete things.

_At least she's happy_, I though, staring out the windscreen.

When we arrived at Aunty Nina and Uncle Chris's, the four of us got out of the car. Ninahugged me first, then Jazz, then Emmett, who was standing protectively next to Rose. 'You must be Nina. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Rosalie.'

'Oh, hello, sweetie. I'm so glad to meet you too. You're Carol's daughter, right? You're a spitting image, you are. Come on in, guys.'

As soon as we walked inside, I was ambushed by Lilly and Violet.

'Hey Bella!' Lilly said.

'How are you?' her twin chirped.

'Uh… Hey, guys. I'm good. How are you? You seem to have grown.'

'Good!' They sang in unison. 'I'm a hundred and fifty-four centimetres tall now,' Lily added.

'Wow, that's pretty tall.' They were actually almost as tall as me, the height being a gene – again – from Mum's side, which I'd missed.

'I'm a three centimetres taller,' Violet bragged.

'Girls, leave Bella alone. Have you wrapped all your presents yet?' Both girls ran upstairs, frightened of the prospect of the mother walking in and seeing her present.

Mum and Dad pulled up in the driveway in Dad's Merc, and Nina hurried off to greet them. Emmett and Jazz went out to help get the bags, so I said to Rose, 'you want to meet everyone?'

She nodded, so we continued through to the kitchen, where Uncle Chris was already chopping vegetables for dinner. 'Hey, Chris.'

'Oh! Bella! How are you honey?' He wiped his hands clean of tomato juices then came to hug me. 'Mmm, we haven't seen you in ages! And who are you, darling?' he asked.

'I'm Rosalie. Or Rose, if you'd rather. I'm Carol's daughter.'

'Oh! Of course! I should have known!' He enveloped Rose in a bear hug, grinning at the new girl. 'And which young gentleman are you here with?'

'Emmett.'

'Ah. And did Jasper bring anyone?' At that moment, Alice, Edward and Jasper walked in, loaded with bags. I noticed that Edward had mine, and wondered whether that was coincidence or purposeful.

Chris hugged and greeted everyone, and was as impressed with Edward and Alice as he was with Rose. Nina showed us each the rooms we were staying in – Mum and Dad in the guest room, Rose and Alice in the lounge, Emmett with Tim, Jasper and Edward with Jason, and Sarah, who I hadn't met yet, and me in the study. Nina assured me Sarah was 'an absolute darl,' and told me to go up to Tim's room to say 'hi'.

I paused outside his room, gathering up the courage. So, maybe I had liked him, when I was a kid and had no idea what incest meant, but there was no way I would admit that to Jasper. Not trying to think about what I was doing, I knocked on his door shortly.

He opened it ten seconds later – I had been counting in my head – and said, 'Oh! Hello, Isabelle. How are you?'

I fidgeted. 'Fine, thanks. And you?'

'Good. Would you like to come in?'

'Yeah,' I said, stepping into his room. It was fairly bare – most of the posters had been taken down when he moved out to go to university – and a single suitcase was open on his bed. He seemed to be in the process of wrapping presents, like his younger sisters.

And looking through a stack of books on his desk from high school was a tall, tall girl with long dark hair that flowed down her back. She turned around to look at me, and her sculpted eyebrows rose.

'Hello. I'm Sarah.' She femininely extended a hand for me to shake.

'Isabella,' I said, emphasizing the second 'a' and making Tim look slightly embarrassed.

'It's a pleasure. Nina's told me quite a bit about you. We're sharing the study over the next couple nights.' She smiled invitingly at me, and I grinned back, considerably less gracefully.

'Yeah. Have you been down there yet?'

'No. Should we go look now, Tim?' She didn't seem to be asking him to join us as much as she was asking for permission. I fought the urge to scream something like, _'Of course you can fucking go! He's not your master! Don't listen to guys! They suck!'_ then break down into tears, but instead bit my tongue and stayed quiet.

'Yeah,' he said dismissively, turning around and busying himself with something fiddly I couldn't see. He no longer seemed very talkative.

Sarah smiled, took my arm in hers, and we walked down the stairs and through the corridor and into the study, where two beds consisting of inflatable mats, sheets and sleeping bags were set up for us.

'Exclusive,' I said. Sarah laughed airily. I felt kind of bad, seeing as Nina and Chris had to accommodate, cook for and entertain for Mum, Dad, Emmett, Jasper, Edward, Alice, Rosalie, Carol, David, Louisa, Sarah, Sarah's Mum, Sarah's Dad and me as well as their own large family, and tomorrow make room for Genevieve and my grandparents. Carol, Alice's and Sarah's parents were staying in the yard in tents, and from what I could see from the study window, Emmett and Jasper were grappling with the poles, trying to beat them into shape using their fantastical swearing magic.

I turned back to Sarah. She seemed nice, if a little bit of a push-over, but I liked her. Yeah, she was unsure about Tim and their relationship even after they'd been together for years, and she didn't seem to have a sense of self-confidence, but she seemed like a genuinely good person, something my life was lacking lately.

Sarah and I both left to get our suitcases, then reunited and chatted for ages, mostly about school. She'd just finished her first year of uni after backpacking all over Europe. It seemed like a fairly stereotypical thing to do, but the way she told her Belgian wake-boarder guy stories made it sound like the first time anyone had ever hitch-hiked.

It wasn't until Uncle Chris came in to warn us 'ten minutes until tea, girls' that I realised she could be really open and friendly when Tim wasn't around. She answered all my questions fully and sincerely, like an old friend would.

It seemed that Timothy Blue Hanson was a bad influence.

'Well, I'm going to go say hi to Jason. I haven't seen him yet,' I told her, standing up and stretching. 'I'll see you at tea.'

'Bye,' she said, and I walked up the stairs and knocked on Jason's door. He opened it with his headphones in his ears, and yanked them out when he saw who it was. 'Bella! How are you?' He hugged me tightly.

'I'm great, Jase. You?'

'I'm really good, thanks.'

'Oh my gosh, you went on exchange this year didn't you? How was that?' Jason had been on exchange to Italy for six months.

'Awesome. It was the best.'

'That's really great. Don't you do, like, geek Italian at school? For us nerds?'

'Yeah,' he laughed. 'Hey, speaking of, can you introduce me to your exchange kid?'

'Edward?' I asked timidly.

'Yeah. Him.'

I swallowed and then decided I'd just have to get over it. 'Sure. Come on. Let's go find him.'

Edward was sitting on the leather couches in the living room with Nina, Mum and Emmett. I could see Alice, Rose and Jasper in the yard with the twins playing tiggy or something, weaving between the dodgily constructed tents. Everyone sitting around looked up at us.

'Um, Jase just wanted to say hi to Edward. Sorry if we're interrupting anything,' I said.

'No, no,' Edward said, standing up and extending a hand to my cousin. 'Edward. It's a pleasure.'

'I'm Jason. Nice to meet you.'

They both sat down on the couch Edward had had to himself, and Nina resumed her conversation. 'So Edward, have you been in contact with your family while you've been here? Surely your parents would want to hear all about the things you've been doing?'

He looked me straight in the eye while he answered Nina. 'Yeah, my family are very interested in what I've been doing. My Aunt makes sure I keep in touch, you know, she emails me a lot.' I looked to the ground, and he turned back to Nina, who was chattily oblivious to our exchange. Mum, however, was not.

'Yeah. Wow. Well, it's a very big thing to go on exchange. In fact, Jason here just went to Italy for six months. He got back three weeks ago,' Nina continued.

'Oh, really?' Edward asked, seeming relieved that the conversation had turned away from him.

'Dinner!' Chris called from the kitchen, and he and Dad each came out with four plates, setting them on the table in a line – there were way too many of us to all sit around the table. We all grabbed a highly loaded plate full of tomatoey spaghetti goodness and found a place to sit. I ended up on the garden bench outside with Alice. It was the first chance we'd had to talk privately since we arrived.

'So how did it go? The trip down?' I asked.

'Fine,' she answered. 'Mostly we listened to the radio and played eye-spy. It was kind of awkward though, with your parents there and stuff. I tried to be friendly to him, and I got a few weird curious looks from your Mum. I think she might of thought I like him.'

'Al, I'm really sorry, I would have gone, it's just… Yeah. Sorry'

'I get it Bells. But I'm not too keen on doing it again, so I think you should sort it out with him before we leave.' I didn't answer. 'Bella? Come on. He hasn't been here two weeks! You've still got fifty-one left.'

'Fine,' I sighed. 'I will tonight. But I can't promise everything will be peachy.'

'It never is,' she said.

I completely agreed.

After tea, Lilly and Violet decreed it was time to go Christmas light spotting. So, we all piled into our cars, and after Jasper saw how disinterested I was about travelling with Mum, Dad and Edward, he volunteered immediately and hopped in the Merc.

Alice was relieved to have us this time round, and made a point at each blindingly bright set of lights to remind me to talk to him.

We'd been driving for at least an hour, commenting on the dedication of the various Santas who were camped outside their collective houses, handing out paper bags full of cheap mixed lollies and staring trying to check out my behind.

We were all fairly bored, and when the twins got tired of everything, we decided to go to the last, best place then head home.

'The best one' turned out to be an entire street full of lights up one side. Some houses went full-on with the blow-up Santas and life-size reindeer, and others went 'abstract' and kind of just threw their ropes of lights over bushes, plugged them in and were done with it.

We all got out and admired the street, with its' many elves trotting around, and Mum and Dad stopped to talk to some people they knew, and hadn't seen for two decades or something.

Alice, who was standing next to me, nudged me in the direction of Edward. 'Fine,' I said grudgingly.

I walked up to where he was, standing with Emmett looking at a particularly chaotic garden full of miniature Christmas statues. 'Hi,' I said nervously, and he turned to look at me.

'Hey,' he said, also anxious. I fixed my hands deep in my jacket pockets, and gave Em a pointed stare. He wandered off to Alice and Rose.

'I, um, want to apologise,' I began, 'For overreacting. I know you didn't try to get yourself into that situation with Jess and I took it really badly, and that wasn't fair of me.'

'Bella, you shouldn't apologise. It's completely my fault. I can see how you took it and that's utterly fair and I really shouldn't have said yes when she asked to talk to me. And, I shouldn't have given my number to the girl in the restaurant.'

'Tanya?'

'I don't know. I tried to forget. And I hope you can too. Could we, just… start over, maybe?' he asked.

_Yes, yes, yes! _I wanted to say immediately. But then I thought. Yeah, he shouldn't have given his number to her, and yes I'd overreacted. He forgot Tanya's name. For me. And he wanted to forget his mistakes, and I wanted to too, and honestly, if I didn't, my life was going to be a living hell for the next eleven months.

So I made myself a compromise. I wasn't ready to completely trust him again, but I couldn't cope without him. He leaned in to kiss me, but before he could get close I stuck my hand out. 'Truce?'

He smiled, trying to hide his disappointment. 'Truce,' he agreed. We shook on it.

**Ta Da!! Hope you liked it!  
School starts up again tomorrow, so it might be a week or two before the next update. Until then, bide your time by continuously pressing that little green button down there and reviewing.  
Rose xxxxxx**


	8. KissyKissy & An Icepack

**Hey, everyone! Sorry about the delay – school's just started up again and we are being absolutely flooded with homework: ew. So anyway, this is a fun chapter that mixes Grease, punching, nail polish, and doesn't really contribute to the plot. Great stuff!**

**Disclaimer: It can be my birthday present for the next fifty years! Please….? **

'Well, I'm sure he was trying to be nice,' Alice countered.

'Nice?'

'Well, how was he meant to know you didn't want to kiss him?' We sat in Nina's ensuite on Boxing Day, painting our nails various vividly bright flourescent tones. Rose was downstairs, showing her designs to Genevieve, hoping she could pass them on to someone of significance. Everyone else was either out doing some touristy thing; or in the house relaxing and playing with Christmas toys.

'But I did,' I whined.

'Then why didn't you?'

'I don't want to be easy!'

'I seriously don't get you. When I kiss Jasp-'

'Shhhh!'

'What?' she asked, cocking her head to the side, trying to hear the thing she thought I was listening to.

'I am on the verge of being fatally grossed out. Do not describe making out with my brother to me, yeah?

'Fine. Geez.'

'I'm sorry. I'm just so crabby lately. I don't mean to be a bitch. Honest.'

'It's okay, Bells.'

'I just, it's just so… Edward.'

'I get it. Hey, let's do something. Go out.'

'And do what?'

'See a movie?'

'Nothing's on, and we've already seen the new _Midnight_.'

'Any clubs in town?'

'No under eighteens. And we won't be able to sneak in.'

'Come on, Bells. Think. What can we do in town tonight?'

'Let's go ask Jase. He'll know.'

It ended up that Jason agreed with Alice's suggestion and later on, Alice, Rose, Emmett, Jasper, Edward, Tim, Sarah, Jason and I split between Em and Tim's cars, arrived at the drive-in at 9.30 that night, bought lots of buttery popcorn at the kiosk, and settled in to watch Grease.

Mum and Nina hadn't liked the idea much, so we'd had to drag along 'three responsible adults' so we could come. I, personally, would never label Emmett as 'responsible'. Maybe 'immature', 'infantile' or 'juvenile', but definitely _not_ 'responsible'.

Tim and Sarah stayed in the car, while Jase joined Alice and Jasper on a blanket on the grass patch to the side of the lot. Emmett had driven us here, but then promptly jumped in the backseat with Rose, pushing me into the drivers' seat.

By the time Olivia Newton-John was singing about her swingin' date with John Travolta, Emmett and Rose were in full-on making out mode. 'I risked a glance in the rear-view, and when I was given much more than I'd expected, I nodded outside the car questioningly to Edward, completely grossed out.

He silently agreed through an eyebrow gesture, and we ended up sitting awkwardly on the rusty roof of Emmett's old blue Volks Wagon.

When John and his band of merry mechanics jumped on top of the car wearing jumpsuits, singing about his hydromatic, greasy thing, Edward had edged little too close to me. But as he put his head down to mine, I did nothing to stop the inevitable kiss, instead unhelpfully turning my head towards his.

But just before our lips touched, a car horn blasted directly behind us. 'Hey! Trying to watch the movie, dickhead!' A man screamed. 'Get off the roof and find a room!'

I cracked up, but Edward looked _very_ disappointed. He turned around, probably to shout something back, but stopped when I jumped down onto the dusty ground and started walking towards the Alice, Jasper and Jase on the grass patch.

'Bella!' he called, weaving through cars, trying to catch up.

'What, Edward? What?'

'I, just… You're going to walk away?'

'Uh, yeah.'

'But- I thought, since we made up w-'

'What did you think, Edward? Enlighten me, because I have absolutely no idea how you mind works.' It was probably a bit harsh, but it was also kind of true.

'I thought that we were good again.'

'You thought kissy-kissy good?'

'Well, yeah. Back to before. How I liked it.'

'Look, Edward, I'm not ready for that. I don't know what I was thinking before. It was very silly. And, yeah, I liked it before too, but I honestly don't know what to think about you. One minute you're all brotherly and then you move in for a kiss and then you start giving away your number. It's very confusing. And I don't want confusion right now.'

He was silent for a minute. 'So I guess you still haven't forgiven me for the number thing,' he said finally.

I felt like a horrible person. 'I'm sorry. It's silly, I know. But if you knew my history with guys, you'd understand why I'm like this- So over-cautious.' I shook my head, then kept walking towards the grass, and sat down. Edward joined me, and I could tell our conversation was over. He wouldn't talk about it in front of these guys.

With about an hour to go in the movie, Alice complained that she was hungry, so Jasper decided to take her to the kiosk because she'd missed out on the popcorn.

'Can I go too?' Edward asked suddenly, popping up like a meercat.

'Uh, sure. Come on,' Jasper said. The three of them left Jase and I to enjoy another enthusiastic song'n'dance routine.

When they returned, Alice dragged me along to the toilet with her. 'What was that all about?' she said as soon as we were in the dingy, reeking toilet block. '"What's Bella's history with guys?" How am I meant to answer that?' She asked with a mouth full of the popcorn she'd bought with her.

'Oh, fuck. He didn't.'

'Oh, shit. He did,' she mocked.

I groaned loudly and sat on one of the graphitized benches circling the walls. A large woman hurried out from her cubicle, giving us both withering glares. She washed her hands then rushed to the door, pausing before she left.

'Swearing kills the soul!' she announced, before storming out.

I was too tired to even giggle. Alice just half-heartedly stuck her tongue out.

'Why did he ask me that question, Bella?' She came to sit beside me.

'We almost kissed. On top of Em's car.'

'On top of a car?! Wow, I have to get Jazz to do that…' she said. 'Um, so what happened? Why "almost"?'

'A jackass behind us blasted the horn and pretty much abused us.'

'Mood-ruining,' Al observed. 'So what happened then?'

'I came to my senses? I jumped down, he caught up to me, turns out he thought that when I agreed to going to like it was before, he thought it was like all smoochy and stuff. I called him out on that, and then said I didn't know what he was about, and he realized I'm still touchy about the number thing, and I told him if he knew my history with guys he'd know why that was.'

'I see. Well, not really. So he was all geared up for a fully swingin' relationship, but you thought friends? Then you had a fight and that prompted the question, "What's her history with guys?"'

'Ugh, yes,' I said, munching on popcorn.

'Hmm.'

We were silent for a moment, before I jumped. 'Wait, what did you tell him?'

'Um, I asked him why he wanted to know. He said Emmett had said something about it but hadn't told him. So I went, "Well, she's had a lot of boyfriends," and he pretty much just turned around and stalked over to Jasper. Dunno what was with him.'

'Okay. Thanks,' I said half-heartedly.

'Do you wanna go home?' I'm sure one of the happy couples can give us a lift.'

'No, I'm alright.,' I said.

'Ok. Do you want to go watch the rest of the movie?

I gave a big sigh and stood up. 'Yeah.'

It took me awhile, as Alice and I weaved through the cars on the lot, to realize she was heading to Emmett's car. In fact, it was when we were a couple metres away that I startled out of my mind and warned her suddenly, 'I wouldn't open that door!'

She turned curiously to me. 'What?'

'That car needs a serious dose of cleanage before anyon-'

I was broken off by a couple of screams a few rows behind us. I looked, panicked, at Alice.

I could tell from the wide-eyed glance she'd returned to me before we'd started running towards the voices that she, too, had recognized Rose's scared scream.

Even though I could have sworn our frantic dash had been in slow motion and taken at least thirty seconds, we were probably part of the crowd forming a circle within a couple of moments. Like, five seconds. Alice and I both pushed to the front of the circle, spotting Rose's hair in a tall bun before we saw the rest of her.

'Rose!' Alice screamed to her, but she didn't hear, because at that moment a puff of dust erupted from inside the circle with a shout, and then the crowd gave a concerned 'Oooh.'

We practically jumped Rose, running into her sides. 'Are you ok-' I got halfway through asking her, before I took in my surroundings.

A crowded circle of people intent on the pair of guys in the middle. One of which, was my brother.

'Emmett!' I screamed. He didn't look up from where he was punching the crap out of a tall, tank guy. By now, I figured most of the people had gotten out from their cars and were straining on their tiptoes to see what was happening.

'What happened?' I asked Rose.

'I don't know. I got out for fresh air and then this guy tried to take me to his car, and he covered my mouth and got this far before Emmett was just there and he started beating him up.'

'Shit,' Alice said as three familiar faces entered the middle of the crowd.

Jase made his way over to us, bewildered, while Edward and Jasper crossed to Emmett, trying to restrain him from where he was shouting rude things in the possible kidnapper/rapist/murderer's face.

Apparently, this guy's friends had the same idea. Two big, brawny, beefy guys crossed over to them and gave my brothers big punches across the jaw, giving the guy time to stand up. He then punched Edward's jaw.

I lurched forward. 'No!' The guy, probably of Italian heritage, turned around to me, and walked over, grinning cockily.

'Has pretty boy over there got himself a pretty little girlfriend?' he taunted as my face screwed in disgust at him. He tried to reach out and touch my face or something, but, without warning, I thrust my knee upwards, where it made a forceful impact with his groin. The entire crowd laughed as the guy fell, grunting in pain.

'Get the hell away from my family,' I said. He whimpered, but remained sprawled on the dusty ground. I walked away, but before I did, couldn't resist giving him a kick in the shins.

'Are you okay?' I asked Emmett, who had copped a fair whacking. But my concerns were useless, because Rosalie and Tim were already over him, trying to help him sit up, and Sarah behind Tim, calling the police. Alice was pre-occupied with Jasper's bloody jaw, with Jason standing behind them, asking if she needed anything frantically, so there was really only one person I could help.

'Edward,' I gasped, as I saw him swaying from his standing position. I steadied him and eased him to the ground. 'Are you alright?' I asked unhelpfully.

He looked up at me. 'I've been better.'

'What were you thinking?' I muttered, probably even less helpfully.

'What was _I_ thinking?'

'Yes!'

'What were _you_ thinking?!'

'What was I thinking what?'

'You could have- You kneed him really hard.'

'I guess I did. It stopped him from hurting you three though, didn't it?'

'It could be counted as abuse,' he pointed out as I grabbed a wad of tissues from my bag and pressed them to his jaw and bottom lip, which was bleeding non-stop.

'Or self-defense,' I told him, pulling at the inside of his lip to see which bit had been bitten, then sticking a bit of tissue there.  
He winced as I wiped the blood from under his nose, which had just started bleeding. 'Ouch,' I muttered.

'Yeah,' he gasped, and I realized he was trying to be tough.

'Did he get you anywhere else?' I asked.

'No, just mouth and nose.'

'Ok. Can you stand?'

'Yep,' he said, but before he did, I wiped his mouth once more.

'Easy, there,' I said, as he leaned on me. The police had arrived, and the pair – A man who looked very tightly wound, and a woman who had her hair out under her cap - were going over to the group around Emmett.

A second set soon arrived, going to Edward and I and Jasper and Alice.

The man – Larry – briefly questioned us, mostly just to get an idea of what had happened, but I told him neither us knew what happened leading up to the bashing. All we could tell him was when we'd arrived, what the trio looked and acted like, and about my little stunt.

Larry seemed fairly easy-going, and was genuinely impressed when I told him I'd kneed him, but I noticed both Edward and he kind of closing their legs a bit when it was mentioned.

I repressed a giggle.

Larry assured me he would put in a good word for me, because 'this guys sounds like a real dick, so what you did was definitely an act of self-defense.'

Despite all the good words Larry could give, we all still had to go 'downtown' to the station to give statements. The worst part of this was that Mum, Dad, Nina and Chris were waiting for us there. At that time, I was very glad Carol, Louisa and David had left yesterday after Christmas dinner.

Rose and Em were the first who had to go and talk to the officers, and because it seemed a fairly busy night at the station (a party seemed to have gotten out of hand, and anxious parents were sitting around), the only attention the rest of us were given was a First Aid kit for Jasper and Edward and a couple ice packs.

Nina insisted on taking her two boys and Sarah home straight away, and was only allowed because they hadn't been an active part of it, just witnesses. They had to give a tired secretary their phone numbers and would have to come back tomorrow.

Mum and Dad were talking to Larry about keeping this off Emmett's (and possibly my own) criminal record and Larry was giving them a run-down on it all.

I turned to Edward, who was slumped in the hard plastic waiting room chair he occupied. His nose, lips and jaw were very swollen, so I grabbed an ice pack and threw one to Alice, who was, disgustingly enough, talking to Jazz about kissing him better.

'Hey,' I mumbled. He looked up at me, straightening uncomfortably in the chair. I pressed the icepack to his lips, very intent on doing it right. Being a doctor's daughter, I'd always been told to focus when helping someone. I used to practice putting band aids on my brothers at half time during their junior footy matches.

So, with all my intense concentration, I didn't realize Edward had been staring at me the entire time I'd been numbing his lips and nose, using the disinfectant and smoothing on the band aids. It was only when I looked up that I saw his green eyes gleaming into mine.

'All done,' I whispered, because it didn't seem like a loud moment.

'Thanks,' he said, his hand somewhat unconsciously touching his jaw bone.

'Anytime.' I drew away from him, putting more distance between us.

He looked like he was about to apologize – yet again – but his mouth, half-way open – closed when he saw my parents walking over to us.

'Bella,' was all Dad said, shaking his head, before Mum launched into a full-scale lecture.

'Isabella! What were you thinking?! You could have gotten yourself killed! It was not up to you to do that to the man. Sarah had called the police, they were on their way. Officer James says that the boy might be trying to charge you for assault! You'll never, _ever_, get a job with _assault_ on your record. Why do you never think? It's truly _very_ immatu-'

'Esme,' Dad said. 'What might have happened if she hadn't? All sorts of bad, _bad_ things.'

'Carlisle, I don't think the problem here is what could've happened.'

'He could have killed her! I think we have to think of the alternatives here!'

'Or, she could have negotiated with him, and the police would have arrived in a matter of minutes without needing to write her name down under possible assault.'

'Actually, Sarah called after it happened,' I couldn't help adding.

They both looked at me. Mum looked even more furious with me, and Dad's look said _whose side are you on?_

'Sorry,' I muttered, letting them return to one of their very rare arguments.

'Look,' said Dad, 'the point is that she acted defensively of herself, of Edward and of her brothers. She's also a minor, so that will all be on her side if, on the off chance he does, try to charge her. And I doubt he will, considering he tried to kidnap Rose.'

Mum didn't have an answer for that one. So she just shook her head disappointedly at me, before going over to Jasper, probably to give him the same lecture.

'Nice going, Bells,' Dad said before following Mum, and I had no clue whether he was being sarcastic or genuine. I stared at my lap, where I wrung out my hands, for the next fifteen minutes, trying not to attract any attention, but eventually, they came for me.

'Swan, Isabella M.?' an almost-elderly policewoman called.

I put my hand up, and she motioned me to follow. As I did, I heard Edward being called too.

I ended up in a small room with a table, two chairs parallel to each other, and a bench on the side with a kettle, a couple mugs and a variety of caffine-heavy coffee blends next to it in jars without labels.

'Please, sit,' Officer Robinson, her nametag introduced her as, told me in a tight voice. I did immediately, noting that these chairs were even less comfortable than the waiting room ones.

'So, tell me what you know. From the start.'

'What I saw, or what I know?' I couldn't help let a bit of my bitch 'tude get in, though it really wasn't going to help me if he did try to charge.

'What you experienced, personally.'

'Well, my friends and I were at the outdoor movie place, and we – Alice and I - had been to the toilets, and we were just back at our car, when-'

'_Your_ car? You seem a little young to drive, Miss.'

'My brother's car.'

'Ok. Do you know the registration number?'

'Um, no.'

'Ok. Continue.' She scribbled down a few notes, probably on my incompetency in remembrance of rego numbers or something stupid and yawn-worthy.

'Um, we were almost at the car when we heard screaming. One of the voices was Rosalie's so we ran to see where she was and what was happening, and there was a big group of people crowding around my brother and the other guy, who were fighting. Then my other brother, cousin and our exchange-'

'What did the fighting include? Were they throwing punches, kicking, screaming?'

The interview continued like this for at least an hour, until Officer Robin or whatever had deduced every possible detail, every description of everyone involved and every single word that had been said up until I came into the room.

When we were finally finished, she told me briefly that the man, whose name no one had bothered to tell me, was not able to charge because of previous charges against him or something like that. I think the frown lines melted off my face in relief.

When I returned to the waiting room, Rose was there, but Edward, Emmett, Jazz and Alice were still being questioned. Dad asked how it went, and I told him the lady was very thorough and that I wasn't being charged. Mum's mood immediately improved when she heard that, but she was still almightily pissed. When Alice came out, Mum told Dad to take the three of us home, and for us to go straight to bed, no questions asked, when we got there.

Dad wouldn't even let us talk when we got inside the house. It was past one in the morning, and Nina and Chris hadn't waited up, so the last thing Dad wanted to do was embarrass us more by giving Nina the chance to come down and give us a lecture as ferociously as Mum had. He simply pointed us towards the direction of our rooms.

Sarah was already in bed – or rather, in her sleeping bag - when I got there, her iPod blasting in her ears, but her eyes closed and her back to my side. I got changed self-consciously behind the computer desk, not really wanting to, but not risking leaving the room for fear of my life.

When I got into my sleeping bag, I heard Sarah whisper, 'Nina's really pissed.'

'I imagine,' I replied flatly, not in the mood.

'She's pretty furious her boys got dragged into it. She thinks you guys are wild.'

Sarah, being the pushover she was, sounded like she kind of agreed with this statement because Nina had.

'Yeah, well, it was that or let that guy kidnap, rape, torture and kill my brother's girlfriend and one of my best friends, so I think this was the better option.'

She didn't reply. _That shut her up_, I thought, smiling, as I drifted to sleep.

**Done! *brushes off hands* So, I hope you all enjoyed it, loved it, whatever, and that you want to press the lil' green button down there and review to your hearts content. You know what'd be fun? Reviewing under seventy different names. What a rush that would be… xxx Rose **

**Also: Happy Valentine's! Hope there's a special someone out there for you… **


	9. Tank Volleyballers & OopsyDaisy Mistakes

**Hey! Hope you all had a good holiday, wherever you all are, and that now work or school or whatever you're up to is going well… **

**So, this is actually a fairly important chapter for the plot, which is…good. No more dilly-dallying around for another couple chapters, which will keep you all (hopefully) interested. Please review if you are, because I can type twenty billion times faster with each review I get. Seriously. **

**I'd also like to give shout-outs to the following wonderful people who help me so much with their praise and loyalty: _Madjestic, Emerald Winter Blossom, Nellie the Elephant, team-edward-lion-lamb, Readingintherain, The Future Mrs Pattinson, tears will fall, _****And the trustiest three: _Becksishere_, who has been with me from about 15 minutes after I posted chapter 1, _Madame-Bovary-was-framed_, my ever-trusty, ever-faithful beta who always knows what I'm trying to say in my weird little ways, and _Dr Jan Itor_, my real-life, anonymous friend who I can always count on. You guys are my (FanFiction) rocks...Keep it up :D **

**Anyway, hope you enjoy it, Rose xxxx**

**Disclaimer: Really, I doubt Stephenie would have written this…**

'Will I need this?' I asked Alice, who was sitting on my bed, flicking through an old mag. I held up the skimpy black dress I'd gotten from some English relatives for Christmas. It wasn't very formal; the kind of thing you'd wear over a bikini on the beach, which was exactly where we were going.

Mum and Dad had decided that nothing more than a trip to the beach would further Edward's Australian experience, and seeing as we only had a week and a half of holidays left, it was now or never.

Nan and Pa were jet-setting around the world on some four month cruise, yet again, and they'd left the keys to their house with us. After a couple phone calls, we had all-clear access to the mega-luxury beach house they owned, situated pretty much exactly on the coast in Inverloch.

Yeah, it was a three-and-a-half hour drive to get there, but the surf was amazing, and, having loaded grandparents, I'd acquired my very own board when I was twelve. 'Cassie' lived in Pa's shed, but I made sure she got good use every time we visited, come rain, hail or shine…or snow for that matter.

Alice was helping me "pack". She was more like moping around in my room after she had some massive argument with Jasper over this movie he was seeing with his mates that she wanted to go see with him. No matter how miniscule the reason was of consequence, it had been pretty epic – I'd heard shouts from the kitchen. Alice was really embarrassed Mum and Dad had heard, but they'd buggered off to the car to pack pretty quickly.

I, on the other had hidden in Emmett's room, next to Jasper's, and listened to the entire thing. When Alice had stormed off to my room, I'd had to mischievously pretend I'd been with Edward the entire time, telling him when I ran through his room to get to mine that I'd explain later. 'Hey,' I'd said when I went in through the bathroom. 'I heard you coming in. What's up?' She then launched into the story I'd already heard firsthand, but I'd had to pay attention nonetheless.

She kept telling me about how boys are crap at communication, and all I could do was make sympathetic noises, and not really care at all about her minute problems when the guy I wasn't sure if I liked or loved or hated and barely even knew clouded my thoughts all day everyday and had been for the past week.

'Yes. Definitely,' she said, and I chucked it into the suitcase next to her on the bed. She _tsked_ and dolled it up neatly, muttering about how clothing needed to be cared for.

After another hour of trying to get all my stuff together, and tediously making my way through my wardrobe, (trying to find unworn or barely worn clothes that needed to be loved before school started up, and all I wore then was our private school uniform and trackies), I dragged my suitcase downstairs, unsurprised to find that, as per usual when going away, Mum and Dad were completely unorganized and we wouldn't be leaving for ages. Regardless, Mum wanted Alice out of the way, especially after the argument.

'Alice, honey, do you need a lift home?' Mum asked her, as she helped me get the case down the final stairs.

'Oh, um, yes, thanks,' she said, smiling charmingly.

'Sure. Carlisle can drop you off in about ten minutes. Is that everything, Bells?'

'Uh,' I looked at the three bags I supported in one way or another. I mentally named them: clothes in suitcase, laptop bag, handbag with books, iPod, phone, sunnies and lipgloss, which was probably already melting. 'Yup,' I replied.

'Ok.' She wiped the sweat off her forehead. 'Alice, Carlisle is out packing the car. If you and Bella take those bags out, he'll run you home.'

We dragged them out, and I apologized to Alice that I couldn't go with her, because Edward had just called to me from his window – which, in this heat, I was amazed he had open – that he had no idea what to pack and to please help him. I don't think she really heard – she was too busy staring at Jasper's window, hoping he would call out to her.

Once I got inside, I avoided going to Edward's room, taking a detour to Jasper's. He was sitting at his desk, looking but not really looking at his Year 12 booklist.

I went to sit on his bed. 'What's up?' I said, cutting off the mouth he had opened, probably to tell me to piss off.

'Nothing,' he grunted, in a very post-adolescent "I'm-so-cool" boy way.

'Alice seemed pretty shitty,' I said, knowing swearing was the only way he would hear me.

'Well, I can't see how that is my fault,' he said cooly, but the paper in his hand scrunched a little from his hardening grip.

'Maybe you should stop being so full of pride,' I said, standing up and making my way to the door, 'and realise how much you actually love her, and go and kiss her and make up.'

I left before he could retort with the usual, 'What would you know? Piss the hell off.' As I climbed the stairs, though, I realized just how that last sentence could apply to more than one person in this house.

* * *

Edward was waiting in his room, with an empty black suitcase and a whole lot of clothes piled on his bed. 'This is weird,' I said after knocking. 'Since when do the males in this house care about what they pack?'

'When they've never been to the beach before?'

'You've- what?' I said, gobsmacked. 'You've never been to the beach?'

'Um, no. Never had the chance.'

'Oh,' I said, feeling guilty. 'Well, get ready to be amazed.'

'What do I need to take?'

'Right. Um, well, the forecast is hotness and sun, so t-shirts and shorts and thongs. Boardies and sunnies and caps for the beach. We have all the sunscreen and towels, and you'll need some boxers or something to sleep in. There are some running tracks too, so if you want to come with Jazz and me, bring runners and socks.'

'That's all?'

'Yup,' I said, picking up a cricket ball Emmett had given him for Christmas, and throwing it up and down. 'And these. Essential,' I said, throwing the ball to him and a football Jasper had given him to go with the shiny red cricket ball. Mum and Dad had gotten him (among other presents) a professional bat, so I told him to pack that too, because Jazz never shared.

I stayed in Edward's room for a while, overseeing his packing while sitting on his bed, where he joined me when he was done. It felt like the old days - as in, less than a month ago – when I didn't have to worry about issues of distrust and public embarrassment. In many ways, since Edward's arrival, I'd grown as a person – it used to be about boys, and who wanted me, and who I could get, and what we got caught doing, and the repercussions of my stupid flings. But now, it was about caring and not love (yet?) but a strong, strong like. Edward had come here, sweeping me off my feet and now I wasn't sure if I was falling from him or flying with him.

'Bella?' I heard Edward say, before he sighed. I broke out of my dreams, realizing I'd been staring into space, accompanied by my thoughts.

'Sorry. Yeah?'

He sighed again. I wondered what his lung capacity was. 'We need to talk. About us.'

Now it was my turn to sigh. 'I know. God, I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry.'

'What? No. No way. I just, I need to know what you want. What you think.' He received only a blank, confused stare from me. 'Do you want me? Us?'

'Of course, but, as I said, I'm an idiot. It's going to be awhile before I really trust you. Could we, maybe, work on that before we get all "kissy-kissy"? I said, quoting him.

He smiled, and though it reached his eyes, I could tell he was disappointed.

'I mean, I barely know anything. You really haven't told me much.' I had been looking at the red and black doona cover, but now I looked him full in the eyes. 'You know so much about me. You're living in my house, you know all my friends. Hell, I introduced you to my parents. What about you? I only know the basics.'

'Well, I've told you about my, um, family situation.'

'Yeah, but tell me about your school, and your house, and your hobbies.'

'Well, I went to a normal school in Beverly hills,' he said, pausing when I scoffed at 'normal'. 'And I was on the baseball team there – it was about the only activity my Step-Uncle would fund, and it was purely to add to his image. Being able to tell the local papers that one day his son/nephew would surely play for his team. Anyway, because of all the training and everything he made me do, I came quite good and I enjoyed playing.

'Then, at the start of school this year, I lost interest, and didn't get picked for the team at school. He got so angry, told me to leave and not come back. He said this would completely ruin his 'family guy' image. How could he keep an entire team and their supporters happy if he couldn't his nephew? My Aunt, for once, stood up for me, suggesting he could tell the papers – who covered all our matches against other schools – that I hadn't gone for the team because I was going on exchange. Somewhere that baseball wasn't a big thing… Australia.

'He wasn't happy. He didn't want to pay for me to have a year-long holiday, but she convinced him I'd need to be gone for the entire season, and the picking of the next season. When I got back, I could just say the sports of Australia had gotten me, and I could move back there after school finished, and make it in the Australian sports industry.

'He wasn't too sure about the last bit, but said it was all we could do for now, and that maybe being away from baseball for an entire year would straighten me out and teach me how much I appreciated it.

'So, he signed me up, last minute, and I had about three days to say goodbye and pack. My Aunt was away those last days, and he had some meeting the morning of my flight. I went to the airport in a taxi.'

'That's really…sad,' I said, finishing lamely.

'Yeah, I guess so. And, honestly, I'm dreading leaving here. Ever since Mum and Dad left, I haven't experienced family. Elizabeth left a month after they passed, coping with her grief. I got a letter saying she'd gotten herself a scholarship, across the other side of the world, and she was staying in a flat with a Portuguese woman, and working a job on the side. She asked me to join her. I was only thirteen. I couldn't go, and she's barely talked to me since I told her no.

'So when I leave here, I'll have to go back to all that, and pretend to be happy in front of the cameras, and I don't know how I'll cope, without all of you.'

I had no idea what to say, so I reached out and pulled his hand into mine, and leant against his shoulder. His finger brushed my cheek carefully, and I didn't notice up until then I'd been crying.

We stayed like that for God knows how long, and it was my father's heavy footsteps that pulled us apart. I hugged him as a silent goodbye before retreating through the bathroom as Dad knocked on the door. Two minutes later, he came to my room, where he told me we were leaving.

* * *

Inverloch was crazy. Surfer guys with sun-bleach dreads roamed our street and the beach just a short trail away from it, looking excellent in the tight minimal clothing they were wearing and showing off on the massive waves. Tanned, topless guys, who kept 'accidentally' hitting their beach cricket balls my way, were charming and always carried my bags back to the house when I told my brother and Edward I was leaving. The indie boy crowd my brother had molded into played soccer on the cobblestone street out the front of our house and blasted Vampire Weekend non-stop.

It seemed all the guys up to the age of twenty had been told of our arrival, and, honestly, I was having lots of fun flaunting myself, to Jasper's and Edward's dismay. Not saying the girls weren't crowding around those two – I often had to stare down giggling, perving groups who passed our towels on the beach. When a particularly persistent gaggle came along, and lay down their towels next to ours, I would tell Jasper Alice was missing him and he should ring her right now, then roll towards Edward and say something particularly flirty, or start poking his (rock hard) abs.

He would get all hopeful, and we'd get very close, and more often than not kiss on the towels while my brother was on the phone, saying things like, 'Alice, honey, I miss you. I can't wait to see you…I really doubt you miss me as much as I do you…'

I felt guilty after I did this with Edward – really, it was the old Bella, the one who wanted all the guys she could get, not the new improved one that cared only for Edward. I'd meant what I'd told him about knowing barely anything about him – but he'd told me more than he'd ever told anyone, and I had to trust him, because really, 'like' wasn't the accurate word anymore.

One night, while Edward was washing the sand from his hair downstairs after a midnight swim – where I got extremely freaked about sharks and demanded we leave – and Jasper was sitting next to me on the leather couch, the fan blowing in our faces, he confronted me.

'Bells, Edward is getting…pissed. I mean, you don't think he's so blind that he doesn't notice you're like a tap with how you turn on and off whenever there's a group of girls or guys with him? One minute you're all over him, the next you're off flirting with Carlos or bloody Patrick, while he sits, staring, and all the girls have been scared off.' He took a deep breath then started up again. 'It's not fair. You need to tell him exactly how you feel, and stick with that decision. He's really, really into you, but he needs to know you are too, otherwise he's going to go after one of those groups of girls instead of kissing you.'

I looked at him, thinking hard. 'Fix it, Bells,' he said, before leaving. I heard the shower turn off, and hurried downstairs to my bedroom before Edward could talk to me.

* * *

Isabella Swan is a coward. Have it printed on a billboard and put up in the middle of Melbourne, New York, London, Paris and Amsterdam, because it is one hundred per cent fact. Not only did I _not_ fix it, I made things unimaginably worse.

We were down on the beach , the three of us, while Mum and Dad were in town getting stuff for a street BBQ tonight that the 'householders' had been invited to. Edward and Jasper had been invited by a group of good looking Queenslanders to play cricket with them up the beach, but it was obvious they wanted me to play. I usually would have said yes, but Jasper's glare told me the most appropriate answer after one of the guys extended the invite to me would be, 'no way. I'd rather stay here and sunbathe.'

'Jasper grinned, and said, 'remember to apply new sunscreen every two hours, or you'll get cancer and Dad won't be impressed.' I simply grunted at him and rolled over, as the guys ran off down the beach.

Now, there's only so long I could stay on that towel with no Edward to mess around with or Jazz to tease. So I got up, put all our valuables in a bag that I left with our next door neighbour who was ten metres or so to the left of us, and asked her to keep an eye out for our towels, and to give the bag to my brother when he came back. She was more than happy to oblige after shed come rushing over this morning, begging for half a kilo of sugar for the dessert she was making for the BBQ.

So, I wondered the beach, taking in all the cute bikinis and toned torsos, before I came to a stop after about a k. I stood on the sidelines of a sand-drawn court with a net down the middle, and recognized my favourite sport. Well, to play.

A massive group of people had crowded around the volleyball court, where two teams were playing each other, laughing but also playing terribly fiercely. The guys and girls playing looked to be between eighteen and twenty, and just as I watched, the ball flew over to the side of the net I was next to hit one of the less skilful players in the face.

She threw her hands to her head, trying to stop her nose from falling off and getting lost in the flow of blood. The ref pulled her to the side, and a middle-aged lady appeared who had been sitting nearby, with a first aid kit.

Everyone waited for the girl to be patched up, but after that incident, no way was she going to risk losing the nose Daddy had paid for. They guys – one of them particularly tall, tank and tanned – looked pretty pissed off with their friend, and complained about having to stop the game they'd been looking forward to the entire holiday.

I stepped out, going up to the ref, who looked at me meanly. 'Do you need a player?' I asked her, and before she could tell me to bugger off, the guy I'd been 'appreciating' before ran up.

'Hell yes, we do. You play?'

'Yeah,' I said, showing off in front of the blond ref, who apparently didn't play.

'We could use you. Can you go up front, next to me?'

'Babe, up front is my specialty,' I said, stripping off my T-shirt to match the other girls on court. They all looked at me with hostile eyes, except one who smiled warmly at me, and shook my hand under the net.

'I'm Sally,' she said.

'Bella,' I replied, just as Blondie blew her whistle.

'Heads!' the tank guy – who I later found out, was Romeo – called as he served the ball. These players were amazing, and the game was closer than any of the school games we'd played. I think I remembered seeing them a few years back at National Championships, when I played for Under 14s. They belonged to the National Volleyball Academy or something.

I had great fun playing – even if it was only Romeo and Sally who welcomed me. All the other girls preying on me, hoping for me to stuff up, cost Romeo the game and turn him against me, and all the guys were hitting it to each other, testing skills and tricks.

Soon enough, there was a minute left, and scores were tied. One of the meaner girls hit the ball to me, and started a ridiculous volley, and I could tell in her eyes she thought I would mess up before she did. So I turned it up a notch, and jumped up, hitting the ball back over the net in the same fashion someone had done to Poor Nose Girl.

She hit it away from her face, and on to the ground, and Blondie reluctantly blew the whistle again, signaling the end of the game. 'Yeah!' Romeo whooped, pumping his fists. All the players on my team now loved me because I'd won them the game. Romeo ran at me and swept me off my feet, spinning me around like I was a rag doll who weighed next to nothing. He put me down and – this is the bit – kissed me full on the mouth, making a big scene and kissing me for far longer than necessary.

Meaning, about two minutes longer than necessary. When we broke apart, all the girls – except Sally – were staring, open mouthed, at me. I smiled up at Romeo, and said I'd see him tonight at the BBQ, before picking up my t-shirt and leaving.

Oh my God. What the fuck had I done?

* * *

When I got back to the towels, Edward and Jasper were waiting for me, kicking a ball around, with everything packed up. I greeted them guiltily, and we trudged home together, both of them trying to relay the hilarious match to me, without much enthusiasm on my part. I blamed it on the sun, saying I needed to go lie down.

Mum wouldn't let me escape the BBQ though. I'd told Romeo I would see him at the BBQ simply to piss the girls off some more, but I didn't realize he'd actually be there. He spent most of the night stalking me whenever I left the safety of Edward and Jasper to get a drink or use the bathroom.

When we sat down to eat – about fifteen kitchen tables had been dragged out onto the closed off street – he made a point of sitting next to me, and a received a few curious looks from Edward and Jasper.

I talked to him politely, not letting on that I'd met him before. He asked me if I played volleyball at school, and I was forced to reply 'How did you guess? I do!'

He gave me weird looks, and after several of these questions, left, thinking I had short term memory loss or something.

When we got home, Jasper asked me, 'What was that all about?'

'I don't know. I gave him back his volleyball today, that's all. I didn't talk to him.'

'Ok. Good,' he said, before going to text Alice. Edward came into my room, wanting a chat or make-out or something, but there was no way I was up for that. 'I'm sorry. Must be sunstroke or something,' I told him, and he left without another word.

* * *

The next day was hot and sunny. I left a note on the kitchen bench at around six, saying I couldn't sleep because of the heat and had gone for a walk.

Seriously, I hadn't had a wink of sleep, and I probably looked liked the living dead as I trudged down the trail to the beach where several surfers were out catching the early, uncrowded waves. I wished I'd bought Cassie, but in this moody and inattentive state, I probably would have drowned due to lack of concentration.

The sand was still cold from the dark night, but the sun was warm and heavy overhead. Before I got very far with my walk, I heard a voice calling out. 'Hey!'

It was, of course, Edward, and I thought about how cliché this was: we were going to have a talk about our relationship on the beach at sunrise, with no one else around and birds calling out. I sat down and buried my shoeless feet in the sand, before looking up at him, shielding my eyes against the vicious sun.

'Hi.'

'We-' he said, sitting next to me, but I cut him off.

'Need to talk again? Yeah.'

'Mm.'

I sighed, before facing him. He collected my cold hands in his warm ones, and sat them in his lap, waiting for me to start. 'I'm a horrible, horrible person. Don't interrupt,' I said, as he opened his mouth to object to my statement. 'I'm selfish and disgusting, and I should be exiled. I don't deserve you. You're so wonderful and nice, and I'm a bitch, and-'

'Bella!' he said, not caring about my instructions. 'No! Come here!' he said. And I had to, because if I didn't I would be more of a monster, and then he kissed me, with a tremendous passion. And it was all I could do not to rip myself away and run home, and cry my eyes out, and scream and shout and throw plates, because I'm such an idiot and I hate myself and how I've treated everyone who's loved me for the last sixteen years.

**Finito! Please please please review, and have a great week, Rose xxx**


	10. Delicious Hedgehog & Mr America 2010

**Hey all, hope you're well. Firstly, I'M SORRY. I've been sick, on holidays, had MULTIPLE tests at school, mountains of homework, piano and singing gigs – not to mention practice – and have hada social life to upkeep. All in all, that leaves, a) not much time for writing, and, b)even less time for writing. And and and, I've been reading lots and lots. Thomas Hardy is a writing gun, did you know? Tess Of The d'Ubervilles is amazing. Although it fills me with feministic rage and horror, wow. ANYWAY, I'd like to thank my wonderful, magical, splendid reviewers. You guys give me the inspiration, and distract me in a music test so I get about 8%. And for that, I love you. Ok, so there's probably a limit to how long these things can be, and I've got at least ten times over, so with that, adios, and I hope you enjoy! Rose xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**P.S. If there are random lines in the middle of the story, please ignore them, they are rather persistent and won't go away.**

**Disclaimer: Really, you're just rubbing it in.**

We arrived home from the beach with two days before the beginning of school, a Saturday. Edward was all nerves, coming up with a new, enthusiastic question every time he looked up. Ever since that morning on the beach, we'd been in official 'boyfriend/girlfriend' mode, much to Jasper's satisfaction, and Mum and Dad were now painfully aware of the afternoons we'd spent sprawled on Edward's double bed in the beach house, kissing and carrying on like the irresponsible teenagers we were.

And then it was the Sunday before school started, and I realised I probably needed to clean out my lunch box.

The bag that had previously smelt like ten rotten bananas and sandwiches that had been chucked in a blender then poured over shit then scooped up and force-fed to the bag, now smelt so bad that, as soon as I edged the zip open about ten millimetres, a bomb went off and the entire floor – meaning Edward and I – had to be evacuated while all the fans and air conditioners and windows were utilised for air freshening purposes.

Mum was at the office in town, sorting out some foundation issues with one of the houses she was working on, and Dad, as per usual, was working. Emmett had returned to Melbourne a couple days after we got home from Chris and Nina's, and Jasper was out at Soccer training. He was hoping to make the State's team this year, as he was incredibly gun at the sport, despite Emmett's constant dissing of it, and his racist tendency to label it as 'wogball'.

After an uncomfortable hour of minimal conversation in the bomb-shelter lounge room, Edward and I decided to brave the bedroom.

For some unknown reason, we found some surgical masks in Dad's office, and some sterilized plastic gloves in the laundry, where we set out a bit of tarp we found in the shed. Using some long barbeque tongs, Edward grabbed my bag by the handle and ran through to where I was holding the door open, and skilfully emptied the contents of the bag onto the tarp.

We both groaned at the stench that the Elmo lunchbox excreted, but stayed put. He pulled his T-shirt over his mask for an extra filter, and I followed suit. 'How do you want to do this?' he asked, voice muffled through the multiple layers.

'Um, quickly.'

'Go get a bin bag.' So I did, returning in record time.

He carefully picked up each item with the tongs, and put it in the big black disposal bag. Everything – including my old student ID card, a good-bye card I was meant to give to my English teacher who was on maternity leave now, and a stack of Christmas cards and candy canes – was covered in slimy brown rotting stuff.

Finally, all we had left was the lunchbox, which was closed, and I definitely wasn't game enough to open it. Edward, as if trying to prove his heroic manliness, stepped forward, and not even bothering with the tongs, opened it, then doubled back to the parallel side of the room as soon as the toxic gases reached his nose.

'Christ!' he said. 'What's in there?!'

Braving the smell, I leant over it, nose wrinkling in disgust. 'Um, looks like an uneaten egg and lettuce sandwich and rotten banana. And some hedgehog.'

'Don't you eat?' he said, edging carefully over to the tarp again.

'I was busy on the last day! I had to clean out my locker, and we had a Year Ten meeting at lunch... I had to do a speech at assembly…' He just shook his head. 'Come on, let's just get it over with.'

It took us a couple of minutes to get the food into the bag. We kept dropping it in disgust, picking it up, then dropping it again. At last, I dropped the banana in, Edward, the sandwich, and he tied up the bag and carried it out to the bins around the side of the house.

I picked up the lunch box with a gloved hand and took it to the kitchen, where I put it in the dishwasher by itself and put in all the disinfectants I could find that didn't have a name that sounded like it would blow the dishwasher up; like Emmett had done once with laundry liquid, mouthwash, shower gel and carpet cleaner when he was seven.

While the dishwasher churned away, I got the tarp, and Edward volunteered to hose it down in the back yard. I dropped the tongs in the sink and chucked away the masks and gloves.

I got my two school dresses, which were embarrassingly short. I'd taken them up one night in Year Eight, so there was no way I was going to risk asking for some new ones. Mum was on a strict "Break it, pay for it" policy – or the school dress equivalent thereof – and I'd rather brave a throng of teachers with Uniform Policy booklets than my furious mother any day.

I put them in the washing machine, along with my high-top undies, black bras, and striped white socks we were supposed to wear and a couple plain pairs I wore anyway, pretty much because I was a rebel.

I asked Edward if he needed any of his uniform washed, simply to break the awkward silence that fell when I walked into the kitchen, before I realized he hadn't even worn it yet.

That didn't even seem to matter yet, cause he said, 'I haven't gotten it yet.'

'What?' I asked.

'The supplier called your Mum the other day, said that my order had been muddled up, and would take two weeks to get here.'

'That sucks,' I said.

'Yeah. It'll be awkward, wearing casual clothes.'

'Casual? Have you checked that with the school yet?' Our uniform board was notorious for not letting kids who tried to incorporate some form of personality get off easily, and I doubted an exchange student without the 'language barrier' would be given a get out of jail card.

'Um, yeah. Your Mum called, asked them. They said I'd have to go get a card from the office, and to carry it with me so I could show it to teachers.'

'Oh.' It literally was a get out of jail card. 'Cool.'

'Yeah.' The awkwardness returned, so I walked out of the room stiffly, going up to my bedroom, enjoying the last few hours of freedom I had before the inevitable onslaught of homework. Edward came up about ten minutes later, and we spent a sizeable amount of time kissing and teasing before Mum got home, calling up the stairs for help with the shopping.

I was completely unprepared for the beeping the next morning. My alarm went off at the ungodly early time of six-thirty, waking me up along with Edward. I'd been having an excellent dream that involved a foot massage and Dale Thomas, but as you can imagine, beeping can be particularly mood-ruining. I managed to stumble into the bathroom first, turning on the straightener before I got in the shower.

When I got out of the bathroom, dressed in my mandatory summer blouse and light tartan skirt combination, with the little bow at the collar, I went down to the kitchen, where Jasper and Edward were sitting in almost-dark – the hallway light was on, casting a yellow light in, but nothing else - drinking coffee and eating toast. Edward looked especially cute with his bed hair, I noticed, while flicking on the lights and calling my brother a 'vampiric retard'.

'Bathroom's free,' I told Edward, pulling the out milk, muesli, yogurt and a banana.

'Thanks' he said around a mouthful of peanut butter. He washed it down with the last of the coffee in his mug, then left. I poured myself a coffee from the plunger then sat next to Jazz, who had already showered and changed into his academic-shorts-and-shirt getup.

'Year Twelve,' I commented, stirring the black coffee with my favourite teaspoon.

'Shit yeah!' he said, half-feigning enthusiasm to hide the terror I could tell was there.

'You'll be right,' I said unhelpfully. He nodded in thanks as he finished his toast, then went over to the couch to put on his shoes.

'Anything on today?' he asked.

'Not much. Usual start of term assembly. Aren't you doing a speech?'

'Um, yeah.' He grunted as he forced his foot into his old school shoes.

'We have an exchange meeting during period one,' I said, checking the calendar in my phone. The school wanted to brief all the kids involved in the program about what the year would be like for us. I knew Alice would be there because had she volunteered to be a translator for the French kids during all the assemblies.

'Yep. Where?'

'Um, T14. Above the auditorium.'

'Ok. I'll see you there.'

All the various cliques walked in to homeroom – the nerds (glasses pushed firmly up noses), the jocks (Emmett's old followers), the Indie kids who idolized Jasper (yeah, my family pretty much owned the school), and the sluts (with a freshly recruited Jessica) who, after sitting down, promptly took off their jumpers (our private school forced us to wear incredibly see-through blouses, and Rose was convinced it was because the teachers were especially perverted in private schools) and revealed what colour bras they were wearing. I cracked up when one girl (a newbie slut) took off her jumper then realised she was wearing a sportsbra and almost fell off her chair trying to put it back on. Most of us wore school vests over the top of the shirts, or singlets underneath, but these girls liked to go without.

Speaking of newbies, there were quite a few in our year. We met two new ones in homegroup – the slut, Katie, whose inarticulate speech and worship of the word 'like' put her off my potential friends list for life. There was also another guy, who, funnily enough, was on exchange. His name was Nate, he was English (with a to-die-for accent) and he was staying with one of the Indie guys who sat in our group sometimes, Jimmy (who was really James, but whatever.)

Nate played bass guitar, was in a band (!), and, when Katie's romantically orientated question silenced every girl in homeroom, each one eager for an answer, he replied, 'no, I just broke up with my girlfriend. She said she couldn't cope with a long distance relationship, so…'

All the girls fawned, then Jasper popped his head in (prompting more teenage girl hormones) to tell me that I had to go get Edward from where he'd been meeting the headmaster and other figures of importance in the school in the main faculty office building. When he exited the office and the next exchange kid, a German girl, walked in, Edward looked severely intimidated. He walked with me, back to homeroom, looking frightened and pale.

'Hey, you'll be fine,' I said, pausing outside the door. 'And all the girls in there are already flirting their heads off with an English guy called Nate, so there's no doubt they'll all love you. Alice is in there too, so it's not like you're a complete stranger, right? Just stay away from the girls whose bras are visible. They'll take advantage of you behind the photocopier if they get the chance.' I widened my eyes at him jokingly, before opening the door to the room, interrupting Mrs Griffith, who was handing out organizers and instructing the new kids with how to lay out the homework they would be given.

'It is of the most importance that you are organized in the most efficient possible way this year. Year Ten will be one of you great conquests, but only if you are always on the ball with homework and are able to hand everything in, on time, always. Miss Cullen, how nice of you to join us again. And who is this you have?' only now did she look back up at me, and it took me a couple seconds to realize what she'd said, then react.

'Um, this is Edward Masen. He's staying with my brother, parents and me until around Christmas time next year. He's from America…and maybe he wants to do some talking?' I looked at him anxiously, trying to tell him I had no idea what to say.

He smiled at me nervously, and stepped forward. 'Hi. I'm Edward. I live in Beverly Hills, in, um, America. I have one sister, who is at a dance school, at the moment, studying ballet. I've been in Australia for a month and a bit, now…and I'm loving it here.' The girls all made Ed keep talking until the bell told us to shift our asses over to the assembly hall.

About halfway through, Jasper and the other School Captain, Ruby Nichols, who had been my volleyball coach for a couple years, got up to speak.

Jasper was always a natural at public speaking, and his first speech as Captain was no exception. In the five minutes of the assembly they had been allocated, Jazz and Ruby made fun of every ridiculous school rule, feature and teacher there was. They'd asked a couple of Year Twelve kids to help them out, calling out when their lines came. When one girl, who'd been asked to make some cheesy sex joke about Jasper, spoke, Alice called,' Move in on my turf, much?'

Alice and Jasper were the kind of couple who seemed to be school property – everyone, (and I mean, _everyone_) knew about them, and because they were such public figures, nothing they did together went unnoticed. It was kind of cute, but for them, incredibly annoying. Just another thing they got to take the piss out of now, I guess.

The meeting started fifteen minutes late, after Mr Atkins, Head of Daily Organization (possibly the biggest blow off of a job, ever – he did the timetables, room changes, organized rosters in the staff room and supervised the school crossing) came late from where he had been directing some kids sweeping leaves or whatever. He ushered everyone in, and told us all to sit on chairs, 'Not the tables, Mr Cullen. School Captains should be setting good examples, okay?'

'Now, everyone, I'd like to welcome you all. Please, feel free to eat your lunches while I talk. You must feel starved after your first day. Now, hello, to all exchange students.

Translators, if you could please take a moment to relay that to your students.' About five different languages relayed throughout the room. I recognised Japanese and French, the two I'd taken up until Year 9, and thought I heard a bit of Spanish.

When all the translators, including Alice who was surrounded by three French kids and their hosts, had finished, Mr Atkins continued. 'Now, you're all here so I can brief you a bit on how this year is going to work for you. I'm going to hand out an events calendar, which will have things like socials and school carnivals, and the formal for in Year Ten and up. But it will also have on it a lot of parties, picnics and outings organised by the Exchange Board down in Melbourne.' He paused for the translators and then kept going.

'So, here we are. Please look over these with your exchange student.' He handed out the calendars, and the one we got had Edward's name on it. Handy. The three of us looked over it, and circled the stuff we wanted to do. I looked over, and heard Alice trying to explain what happened at the formal to two girls who looked particularly excited.

Jasper had started telling Edward about all the sporting teams at school, and I figured they'd be talking for a while, so I slid out of my chair and over to Al.

'Hey,' I said to her, interrupting what the two girls were saying to each other. 'Um...salut?' I said unsurely. 'Je m'appelle Bella.' They looked at me oddly, and I wondered if I'd said, 'Hi. My name is Bella,' or 'Hi. I'm a Bella apple.'

'Hello,' they said in reply, more confident than I had been, and introduced themselves as Gretel and Sophie before going back to looking at the calendar that Alice'd had to write up in French. I turned to her. ' Formal!'

'Ohmigawd, I know! I'm so excited!'

'Are you gonna go with Jasper?'

'Well, I expect so...you?'

'Yeah, you guys'll go together.' I filed my nails, playing dumb.

'No, silly, are you going with Mr. America 2010?'

'Ha. Funny.'

'Well, whatever, are you?'

'I don't know. It's not like he's asked. And it's still two months away.'

'Alright. Just checking.'

'Who'll Rose go with?'

'I don't know. Maybe Mitch?' Ever since Year 7, Mitch, who's in Rose's year, had been infatuated with her. It wasn't creepy or anything, but they were best friends, and Em had often gotten jealous because she seemed to see more of Mitch than of him, or because she was always talking about Mitch, or whatever.

'Yeah. That might be a little awkward, though.'

'Well, she doesn't really have much of a choice. Em's not allowed to go to the formal. It's either Mitch or some random basketball kid or a guy from the AV club. At Em and Rose got to go together last year.'

'I guess. That sucks, though.

When Rose and Em had first started going out, (in summer last year) everyone in the school had been shocked. A Year Ten going out with an Eleven? The adolescent high schoolers were won't-to-do with the slight change in the social scheme of things, and many rumours spread around the school about Rose being with Emmett to look good or to show off, or that she was only doing it for our family's money after her father passed. The worst one of all had been because she knew Emmett would be 'an easy conquer', as Jessica had said. But after over a year of strong-going, everyone's bad opinions of them had cleared up, or at least been silenced.

'Hm. When are we going to buy dresses?'

'Soon. I'd die if all the good ones sold out.'

'Yeah. I'm going to wear my birthday shoes, though. They cost so much, and-'

'Ladies, social time is over,' said Mr Atkins. 'Get back to your students, please.' I gave Alice a _don't you just wish he'd go screw himself?_ look, and crossed back to Jasper and Edward.

Awkwardly enough, Jazz was running my good pal Eddie through Formal night procedures, and as I stood silently behind, unbeknownst to him. Edward noticed me and tried to silence him mid-sentence with facial expressions fit for a gorilla.

'So, what you do,' Jasper continued, 'is you just go and ask her, don't even worry about it, there's no way she'll knock you back. And get onto it, because every year she gets asked by about twenty million guys…' By the end of his spiel, Jasper's words had slowed down, as he realized Edward's expressions were something of a warning. He turned around and saw me.

'Oh… Hey, Bella.' He turned beet red. 'We were just talking about football. No need to worry.' He bailed, walking over to ask Mr Atkins about some School Captain duty or something.

I tried my hardest to smile warmly at Edward, but in my mind, all I could see were replays of that hot afternoon on the beach, kissing Ralph or Richie or Romeo, or whatever. I liked Edward more than I can say, but I was hindered and haunted by my ridiculous mistake. I realized that, if I wanted this to continue, I'd have to 'fess up. No matter the repercussions.

By now, Edward was talking about a subject I was sure to be swept away in any second. And, as I felt the pull of his personality and charm sweep me into the conversation, I realized that the reason I was so opposed to telling the truth was not because I was scared of his reaction (I'd had so many bad ones from people over the years, they these days seemed inevitable), but of slipping out of this routine. We were both so comfortable in these roles, playing the you-flirt-I-flirt, you-kiss-I-kiss, let's not really make it official characters. So comfortable, so familiar and happy, that any change - just the slightest of tweaks – could ultimately alter our blissful state.

And, in all reality, my confession would be far more than a slight tweak.


	11. Chapter the Last

To my dearest, loyal fans,

Firstly, I must apologise. I haven't been writing, or updating or just generally proactiving for a long while. Something big happened to me, and my family was greatly impacted for a while.. The loss of someone is never easy, but it is made worse when it effects so many people - no matter how small an influence it is. After everything I've been through, I can't muster the spirit to continue with these lighthearted stories. My thoughts are too heavy at the moment, and whenever I try to write a chapter, something very terrible happens to the nicest of people. The happy world of FanFiction is not something I can deal with currently.

However, I did put so much work into these stories, and would hate for them to be lost, and worse, unfinished, forever... so PLEASE, if you are interested, take it off my hands. I am more than willing to hand my work over to a good home, and do not need any credit for the chapters already written. Please consider this!

And so, for the final time, drop me a review! I'd love to go out with a bang. Any perspective takers, message me or something, I'd really love to hear from you. Enfin, un grand merci to the faithful, kind reviewers who, for the last two or so years, have so brightened my life and encouraged my writing with incredible words that i so cherish.

A final goodbye, Rose. XXX


End file.
